Question:
I have an air conditioner that does not get the room cool enough for my taste.
It shuts off (Stops producing cold air, but fan still runs) too often. The
compressor seems to only run a minute before it just sits there blowing the
fan.
Does anyone know why air conditioners today do this? Is it really needed? I
believe that it must be some kind of temperature control mechanism, to keep
the room from getting too cool, or to keep the motor from overheating? The
air conditioner is brand new. (I miss the times when things were more powerful.)
Anyhow I wish to know the purpose of this mechanism before I open it up and
attempt to bypass or adjust it. Any ideas?
Answer:
Remove the front grill and check to see if the temperature probe is in line
with (or close to) the flow of cold air. If it is, just bend it a little so it
isn't getting a false cold reading that's coming from the unit. Adjusting it
out of the way of the air flow will help it to take it's measurement from the
room's air (or wherever it's supposed to be taking it from), rather than the
air coming out of the unit. I've heard of this being a design flaw in some
A/Cs, and it's easily corrected. The probe looks like a metal wire with a small
metal bulb-shaped end. What's happening is that the temp probe thinks that the
room has cooled off, so it shuts the compressor until it senses that the room
has warmed back up, presumably to save energy.
Just so you know where this advice is coming from, I don't have any experience
fixing air conditioners. This little bit of info somehow stuck in my mind from
reading a product review in Consumer Reports magazine.
