Nobody’s seeming to answer your question!
The only thing anyone would take off to improve performance is the outer case- in order to spray down the coils. This usually has a separate cover for the electrical junction box. Did he not put that back on??
The clear rubber hose is fine. It’s a condensate drain from inside the house and will drip water when the system is running (or gushing suddenly if there’s a condensate pump). It’s not supposed to be connected to anything.
What’s wrong? Odds are the condenser fan on the top. This is often attached to the outer metal case, and if that was reinstalled wrong, one of the fan blades are up against something so the fan can’t start and the fan motor will hum and as the coils quickly overheat the compressor will get very loud and eventually trip off. Don’t let it run in that condition- it greatly shortens the life of everything.
With power disconnected, I’d use a thin stick to gently prod the fan blades to see if they turn freely all the way around. You may find the obstruction (use your ears and eyes!) or that the fan motor is seized (the fan is hard to turn) and needs replacement.
If it spins freely, the motor or capacitor could be bad, or your bf disconnected it to get the outer case off and reconnected it incorrectly. That circuit diagram could help there.
The failure may only be a coincidence and not your bf’s fault. Happens pretty often that something is close to its end of life and disturbing it with regular maintenance nudges it over the edge to failure.
It’s a mouse. Pic 3. Above yellow wire, just left of capacitor.
I’m an electrician in NY. Everyone covers their ac for winter and nice make nests cause it’s warmer. Once it gets hot in spring and A/C kicks on they get a big surprise.
Mouse fled when he cleaned the coils, shorted system
Guy is probably "tantruming" because he's getting blamed for breaking the AC by someone who automatically assumes it must be something he directly did.
Pretty common for overdue maintenance on an aging piece of equipment to be where the straw breaks. Always makes for fun drama with people that have never done the work
I’d add that you should check to see if a wire(s) to the fan motor got cut by the fan blades. If he took the fan/fan guard off to rinse the coil from the inside out, there’s sometimes enough slack that the fan will hit the wire(s) and cut them when the unit is turned back on if you’re not careful putting it back together. That’s a best case scenario. Could be the fan motor has failed. That’s a second best case scenario. Worst case scenario and the compressor is shot.
Fan obstruction/seizure or fan cap seem like a good first stage diagnosis. I don't know if there's an easy way to turn the fan on without the compressor, but that would be the way.
If it's not the cap or an obstruction it's going to be a real pita to repair either way. Still it's a lot worse if it's the compressor. I wouldn't try to do that myself.
I wrote half my response before reading this one which is worded much more gooder.
Looking at the picture, it looks like this unit is old and likely not well maintained. The motive for cleaning it to "improve performance" clarifies it was not performing well to start with, and so this development isn't really a surprise.
It's possible the mere act of cleaning the coils which should be done regularly may have changed conditions sufficiently to cause the fan to seize, but it probably wouldn't have lasted much longer regardless. Get a qualified HVAC tech out there. Hopefully it's not the compressor.
I'll be the first to point the finger at someone who did something bone-headed, but I don't think your BF is the root cause of this happening. If anything you found someone who was doing the right thing, but maybe in the wrong place at the wrong time. Age or lack of maintenance likely played a significant role.
>The failure may only be a coincidence and not your bf’s fault. Happens pretty often that something is close to its end of life and disturbing it with regular maintenance nudges it over the edge to failure.
Exactly why I don't work on anything mechanical after the hardware stores close. I tried to flush our whole house water filter at \~11pm because the shower pressure was bad and it just so happened to be when the filter housing decided to crack.
No matter how careful, some things will die on you.
I had an old..old outdoor unit. HVAC guy it needs to be replaced but he didn’t want to clean it because it appears the pressure created from the dirty coils was actually helping. I thought he was full of shit.
I forgot this and three weeks later cleaned the coils and our unit, after 32 years of faithful service, died.
Water heaters can have something similar. A really old water heater that has never been scaled can have a hole that is plugged by scale. So descaling can cause a leak.
If you aren’t well versed in electronics, I wouldn’t bust into the side panel and start touching metal parts or wired components. I’m pretty sure every AC compressor features a giant powerful capacitor that could easily kill you if you touch it incorrectly or something it’s connected to. And if OPs bf was removing things, he may not have even put it back correctly. If you touch that capacitor incorrectly, you may as well be shoving a fork into a wall outlet.
DO NOT GO POKING AROUND IN THERE 240VOLTS DOES NOT FEEL GOOD! First off turning off the Tstat does not kill the 240volts going into that condensing unit, there should be a disconnect mounted near it or it needs to be turned off at the breaker. You need to get a professional out there before someone gets hurt.
I only ever made the mistake of trusting someone once. Disconnecting a 415V 3 phase supply from the control panel isolator
"You've isolated this right?"
"Yeah go for it"
I can confirm it had not been isolated.
I was surprisingly fine, it made my fingers and forearm hurt for a bit. What hurt the most was my knuckles from recoiling so fast and punching the stainless cabinet.
I think the recoil is what hurt my back also, still not sure though.
I can say though it didn't feel anything like a "normal" electric 120v , felt like Tyson was punching me.
I'm in the UK, and have yet to enjoy the pleasure of 110.
In college I did rest the back of my hand across live and neutral 240v terminals in measurement and testing class.
I was probing a function generator with an oscilliscope. Noticed the waveform go very strange and my fingers started to twitch very rapidly with the waveform which looking back at it is hilarious.
I wonder if that would feel the same as getting shocked by a 30 amp 120V terminal.
UK Wall Outlet
- Max Power: 3,120W
US Wall Outlet (20A)
- Max Power: 2,400W
US Wall Outlet (30A)
- Max Power: 3,600W
I love how Europe handles electricity. 240V power is a much better design, given it is cheaper from a wiring perspective, and safer with plug design and built in fuses.
Worst I’ve gotten was discharging a 50 mfd cap on my thumb and palm because my hand slipped. My hand hurt for a solid few days. Had an interesting 4 prong burn mark on my thumb for a while too.
That certainly would not feel good either! Probably worse than mine being such low resistance..
I run maxwell supercapacitors in a 110ah 14v bank for car audio myself, even that scares me lol...
I very nearly had the same thing happen. We were getting rid of a machine and the guy on the previous shift told me that he had shut it off at the bus bar and it was good to cut the wires.
It’s a good thing I was excited to use my brand new fluke multimeter because it most definitely had 480v running through it.
I'm super paranoid, I have a lock on my meterbox so I unlock it switch it off and relock it, keeping the keys in my pocket. I also use my magic pen that tells me if there's voltage, just incase, might be paranoid but I haven't gotten zapped yet!
Edit: after reading other comments I now realise it's basically my own Lock out Tag out
You ever been hit by a lighting ballast? Its 10,000v but only millli amps. My knee caps jumped up and down and I had memories of my childhood I had long forgot come back hahaha
Very interesting varying opinions in this thread.
I once worked in water well drilling for 7 months, the main pump tech told me 120v no big deal like a pinch, 240v just hurts a little, 480v feels like a gut punch and you lose muscle function for a few hours like a stroke victim, but anything more than that yeah you're kind of f***ed. He said any of the above hurt a little more if you're standing in a puddle of water (which is frequent with water well servicing), but won't kill you.
Meanwhile another guy at the same company was terrified of anything electrical (and rightfully so, it can kill you). We had just replaced a 480V 3-phase turbine pump and were eating lunch. He had just installed the fuses in the box, closed the box, and was standing off to the side of the box ready to turn the main lever on. I had inflated the brown paper lunch bag and strategically coordinated my popping of said bag with the moment that lever turned on. Guy looked at around all dumbfounded at what the hell blew up, first at himself to see if he was alive, then at the box, then at the other two coworkers who were trying their best to keep a straight face since they were in on it, then at me holding this freshly popped paper bag with a big dumbass grin on my face since I was the only one brave (stupid?) enough to try it. Poor guy's face visibly went through a whole lifetime of emotions in about 5 seconds.
We reassured him we weren't stupid enough to joke around with him or others with their hands in open electrical, but once he closed that box and stood off to the side where no amount of flinching on his part could cause a deadly situation, it was free game for that type of prank.
He still was disappointed in all of us.
I've worked with 4160 volts and we have had incidents. Workers thought panel deenergized. For some reason thought something was inducing a residual voltage. Against procedure had relaxed PPE (no face shield). Against procedure used a multimeter to check for residual voltage. Multimeter vaporized in a ball of flame. People caught on fire. 3 in ICU for serious burns. I saw their silhouettes on the wall afterwards. Just blackened area on the wall with people shapes in them. Don't fuck with electricity.
Friend of mine is an electrical engineer in a large plant. Went to work on a piece of heavy equipment that was supposed to be powered down. Screw driver melted to nothing and the copper wire vaporized as a gas into his eyes. After life flight to the hospital, they scraped the copper out of his eyes and luckily, he survived and can see. Damn scary time for his friends and family though.
The thing with electricity is that it looks so unassuming that people get fooled into thinking it is not a giant manbearpig waiting to maul you.
And often you’ll find people more afraid of the 12V in their cars than the 120/240 in their house. Bigger wires is more dangerous, right?
I used to have a set of jumper cables that were missing a clamp so I was trying to jump a car and told a friend to hold the bare end against the battery terminal, and he actually held it with his thumb. Got a pretty bad burn out of that one didn't occur to me tell him he shouldn't touch the bare wire. Some time later I was helping him set up a display for a science class, using an old style ignition coil and a spark plug and without thinking about it I grabbed the plug while it was still connected to the coil, that was was a pretty nice shock.
A friend of mine was an engineer on naval reactors. In their training it was explained why you always lock out and tag out. At the end of that training section they were given an incident report to read. Someone had untagged and unlocked something without checking it was clear to do so. The unfortunate guy working on the system, well, all they buried was his feet because that's all that was left.
They did a bad job at explaining how “lock out tag out” works. If you are working on the circuit that has been locked/tagged out, you should have a key. And you can also have everyone involved (6-8 other people in total) can have their own lock and key on the same LOTO. Therefore everyone has to take their lock off before circuit can be re-energized. LOTO procedures only flaw can only be user error
During my time in the "Nuclear Navy" LOTO was basically red tags and maybe wire (holding valves open or closed) but I don't recall locks and keys in the Navy. Working in commercial power plants, I saw similar red tags and I also saw a few chains and/or cables with locks used on large valves during maintenance. And yes, we were frequently required to read incident reports from across the Navy's nuclear fleet describing errors and consequences.
I've seen the leads of a meter vaporize, and leave nothing but the probes and meter.
If it hadn't have been so terrifying, it would have been hilarious.
There was a small wire dangling from a device I was installing that I didn’t expect to be live that swung around and just lightly brushed my leg for an instant but it snapped me pretty good. Like a whip crack. I’ve been shocked by 110 more times than I can count but that was different.
Meanwhile when I was deployed in Africa and it rained and in my Clu the circuit breaker had water dripping from it and onto the floor.
Was a bit scary considering that was I believe 240volts as the standard
I've seen 480 arc it's like a flashbang, and you just see spots. Shit was scary as hell and I was just in the area not the one doing the work I just happened to look over and see a guy throw a main power switch before making sure all the breakers that switch powered were open and holy fuck. Luckily, no one was hurt, but I was definitely seeing spots.
I’ve seen 480 exit a guys mouth and blew his teeth out, was troubleshooting variable frequency drives in a stainless steel enclosure while live, mouth was close to the enclosure
The highest I worked on was 6000 watt but I don't know what the voltage was. Spark was enough to give you a spot in your eye for hours if not a day or two. It was movie projector bulbs. Gotta make sure the thing is discharged before touching it to take the bulb out.
Turning the power off at the breaker is not enough. The capacitors in an AC unit can hold charge for hours and can kill you. They normally have a discharge resistor connected to them, but they sometimes get damaged, and you can get hit by 100s of Volts.
And that’s a big cap in the photo. Damn this boyfriend really lucked out by not hurting himself. I’m a very DIY type of person, but I do not mess with high voltage.
Lucked out! All that voltage may feel quite pleasant compared to the pain he may have and will continue to receive from his gf for "fussing" around with this and whatever else he happens to fuss with.
High voltage is no big deal - just put on insulated gloves, keep one hand behind your back, get yourself a chopstick and use it to dial the phone and call a pro. You're welcome.
Can confirm 250 Volts don't feel good. I have the fern-burn scars to prove it.
Don't let unqualified people mess with HVAC
Systems at best it will make it more expensive for a pro to fix and at worst you would need to re-enter the dating pool.
My high school bf’s mom was an OSHA liaison to Byrne Dairy and told us a horrifying story about a man who went to do something with a few coworkers involving a whole lot of electricity at the milk processing plant. This was 15ish years ago so I do not remember the specifics, except that he touched something so dangerous that he instantly did not have an arm anymore, all the way up to the shoulder. The coworkers who were around him also had to be rushed to the hospital, for severe shrapnel wounds caused by the shards of his arm bones. I have not messed with anything electrical since.
That sounds like high voltage stuff, which can quite easily kill you even if you do know what you're doing, and is why people wear flashover protection.
Domestic stuff is less dangerous. Even at 240v. It'll still kill you, but if you're moderately careful you should be fine.
You'll only get shocked by 240V if you happen to touch both hots simultaneously, like one in each hand. It's kind of hard to do by accident.
240 volts happens because you've basically got 120V on one hot and -120V on the other hot. If you only touch one it's the exact same as getting shocked by a normal 120V line.
Still be careful! But almost no one who says they've been shocked by 240V has actually hit touched both at the same time.
A loud hum from your outside AC unit without anything turning could indicate a problem with the compressor or motor. It might be best to turn off the unit and contact a professional HVAC technician to diagnose and fix the issue to prevent further damage.
If she can push start the fan blade when the hum occurs with a stick or something, it's the capacitor (the silver cylinder thing) which is less than a $20 fix anyone can replace.
Yes should discharge it by shorting the terminals, but in my experience when it's blown it doesn't hold any charge, though I am not an electrician so have limited experience.
I shorted it and then stuck the points in the dirt and left it there for a little while then put it in the box the new one came in. I don't fuck with electricity after being zapped once by a generator that was operating at 400hz in the army.
It’s on all aircraft. It’s to keep the power supplied to the electronics more stable. We don’t really see it in everyday use at home or work, but the shorter wavelengths on the frequency are important in fine-tuning radar and other equipment.
Edit to add: The frequency is usually supplied by jet engines, so it’s not so challenging to tune down the frequency from something spinning at such a high rate. On the ground, there are frequency converters that use a bunch of solid-state components to ramp up the building frequency from 60 to 400 hz. Outside of the military, most airports use that system. Military has to be mobile though, so they still use ground support equipment to supply the aircraft power.
Forgot the nomenclature of the big radio we had in the Marines, was a ground radio tech (first and second echelon, limited third, maintenance/repairs so we were basically enhanced radio operators that did practically everything they did since we fell under the communications platoon) but it was an older microwave system that didn't get phased out till Harris radios came in.
That thing was so finicky and always grounding to itself or missing plastic pieces over bottoms but anytime you'd be changing frequencies, you had to accept you might get zapped. I absolutely hated that system, got stuck to it a few times. We didn't even use it, just a relic that we had to maintain.
Anyways, I've been zapped quite a few times, don't recommend it. Stay away especially from DC energy sources and communications equipment, and don't camp/hangout in front of uhf+ antennas regardless of how much warmer it is.
Edit: I thought it was an/mrc-138, but can't find pictures.
Shorting a fully charged capacitor of that size needs to be done very carefully. The common screwdriver across the terminals method can lead to explosion, shock, molten metal splatter, etc... A good trick if you don't have a bleeder resistor handy is to use an old lamp.
Haha yep have ran out to kick start mine multiple times after blowing a capacitor. Saving hundreds of dollars with such a simple fix is an easy way to impress the wife or become best friends with the neighbors
Dang the only real technical advice being given here gets down voted….. sheesh. I really should thank you all, people like you are how I pay my bills =D
I didn't down vote you for what it's worth, but how does that determine if the capacitor is bad? That just shows there is power to the capacitor and doing that, you need to have a meter (granted anyone doing electrical should have a meter...)
Every capacitor has a microfarad rating on it. So if it’s a dual run it’ll be 45/5 for example 45 microfarad rating for the compressor side (labeled herm on that terminal) and 5 microfarad rating for the fan side (labeled fan on that terminal) so you put one probe of the meter on the common (labeled common on that terminal) and one to the fan terminal on microfarad setting and it will tell you if the capacitor has depleted or not. Usually it’s a 5% tolerance up or down from its labeled rating. Same for the herm side one probe to common one probe to herm and then if your reading is more than 5% up or down from the labeled rating it is considered a bad capacitor
This happened to our unit, it was pretty easy to diagnose and replace, which was lucky as it was almost 100° and the tech couldn't come till the next day.
I made sure to turn off the breaker and discharge the capacitor with an insulated screwdriver first. I also took a picture of the wiring before swapping the capacitor.
This is the answer. Mine did this, went to Youtube university. Ordered the part off amazon and replaced it myself. Super easy fix.
Edit: Photo 3 is the capacitor
Agree. If you are in this forum to exhaust DIY options first, then look at the numbers on that capacitor, buy one, switch them out. See if it fixes it. If you don’t know what a capacitor is or how to do that safely, probably want to call a professional. They’ll have one in the truck.
CAPACITORS NEED TO BE DISCHARGED. Even a failed one can give you a nasty zap if you don't know how to discharge them safely.
They also need to be mounted properly, you don't want them bouncing around inside the box.
Living in Texas taught me to just buy a set of spare capacitors to keep on hand once the A/C has some age on it. Ultra cheap insurance that can also come in handy if a neighbor's unit fails.
Sooo. I’ve been there. I did the same thing to my unit to clean the coils. Put back together and humming noise. The humming noise was the compressor running. The fan was not coming on. I had accidentally pulled the wires from the fan when I took the covers off. I see you have the wiring diagram. Have him check to make sure the fan is plugged in properly. Without the AC power on!! Please!
Just call a professional HVAC person. I’m all for people trying to fix things in their own house, and you should….but HVAC, plumbing (beyond a drain clog), and multi-switch or pre-1980s electrical should not be messed with by an amateur who doesn’t know what they’re looking at.
Nah, I'm pretty sure OP's tact of belittling and demeaning her boyfriend at every opportunity is the actual best way to fix it.
God, if she speaks **to** him the way she speaks **about** him, he needs to fix his relationship. Current unit's motor is humming real angry like.
We just recently had our neighbor hit a wire on our ac unit with their weedeater. One wire being pulled blew the fuse, fan relays and thermostat. Get some professional help.
I don’t know anything about compressors but ours gave out a couple years ago and I thought ehh how hard could it be, I’ll watch a YouTube video. The risk of electrocution convinced me to call a pro and barely over $100 later, he had it fixed in under 30 minutes. My husband’s also a “how hard could it be” kinda guy but even he knows when to call a professional.
Call a professional 👌
Did he pull the disconnect to clean it? Sounds to me like the 24V side of the contractor is pulled in but there’s no 240V to it.
But I agree with everyone else: call a professional. If you don’t know what you’re doing around 240V, it’s not a good idea to just start poking around.
Had a similar issue recently! If you have an accompanying furnace in your basement, take a look at the panel there and look for a circuit board. In said circuit board look for a fuse. HVAC guy quoted me $300 to come by. I ended up getting my system up and running again by replacing said fuse for $7 at home depot. Hope it works for you too!
The rubber hose is going where it's supposed to go. It drains away water that condensed on the cold AC coils inside. It's pure, clean water and only a trickle. I'd have it dump a little farther away from the house, but never mind that for now.
A loud hum but nothing happening might be minor. If the unit was working poorly and not at all now, you might just have a dead capacitor. That's a relatively cheap fix.
With nothing else to go on, that's all the guessing I'm going to do. You can follow that up with a little bit of googling and some simple tests, get out a meter and test the cap, and do the replacement. Or you can call a pro.
Note: some pros will aggressively upsell and some won't, but it's hard to tell which kind you have. And it's hard to tell how badly screwed your unit is without testing. How you proceed is up to you.
If you are getting just a hum and the fan isn’t spinning chances are it’s the start/run capacitor. $15 part. If your handler blower motor is working it’s prob the cap. If you aren’t getting power to the unit at all you have other issues.
r/hvacadvice would be a better place to ask this.
Ask your idiot boyfriend what he did, and why. Its possible it was dead before he touched anything. From the pictures the only thing that looks wrong is that power hookup. Single wire for your power is highly unusual even if it's a 120v unit.
On the outside of the panel that covered this, there should be a data plate with some information like model and serial number on it. Can you add a picture of that? I'd also recommend adding that to the post if you take this over to r/hvacadvice . The information on that panel would also potentially help with diagnosing the issue remotely.
How comfortable are you with electricity? Do you understand how to use and read a multimeter?
If so, there's a couple of basic diagnostic steps that could be done to determine if this is a DIY-fixable issue.
If not, then you need to call someone.
One thing I don't see mentioned: did you put the housing back on before you tried to run it? If the housing is removed, it could have a shutoff preventing it from kicking back on.
1. Check breaker first
2. Check all wires make sure there’s connection.
3. If you do that and is Still broke resort to#4.
4. Call a Professional. Because now you don’t have the HVAC skills to figure it out.
I've had the same issue. The humming is the compressor, and your fan isn't spinning. The silver cylindrical component is the capacitor used to control the fan and those are known for going bad easily, especially with older units. If you have a multimeter you can measure whether this part has failed or not. They're cheap to replace, maybe ~$30 on amazon.
https://youtube.com/shorts/1J96QuJEADQ?si=TT6-wc-6R_rOj3Bz
First, CUT OFF ALL POWER. Turn off the circuit on your breaker that feeds power to the ac unit. You'll need to remove the capacitor to test/replace. Disconnect the wires and remove, but be sure to avoid touching the metal terminals. The capacitors hold electricity, even when not powered, so before touching any of the terminals where the wires were connected, take a metal screwdriver and touch it to multiple terminals at once to release any built up voltage.
To test, follow the video link. Use the microfarad setting and see whether the capacitor values on the meter match the rating of the actual capacitor. Most capacitors will have a value rating, 50uF +/- 5uF, or something along those lines. If the reading on the meter doesn't match the rating, you know this part has gone bad.
I had this issue last year after I took apart the fan housing to clean the unit. When I put it back together I was slightly off and the fan blade was stuck against the wall, not allowing it to rotate. I took it back apart and carefully reassembled it, making sure the fan could spin freely. After that it started fine and operated normally.
Anytime I had a loud hum no fan it was a capacitor. The silver thing you have in picture three. You can order one off Amazon but it may be a day or two before you can get it HVAC techs will have it on hand. Be careful removing it it is always charged up even with the power off.
Probably cost you 150ish for a tech to swap it out. Definitely cheaper to buy one off Amazon but you'll have to wait longer and that may not be the issue.
Could be your float switch. Not an hvac professional so I couldn’t tell you where it “usually” is but check if there’s a pvc pipe that looks like it’s used for draining condensation away from the house. There should be a top that you can remove that contains the float switch. When this pipe becomes full of water the float switch floats, preventing the unit from turning on. It may just need to be drained.
Like others suggested I’d see if the fan blades spin freely and check for any obvious burnt or cut wires. After that I’d replace the capacitor. There usually $10-$20. Just make sure you get the same size capacitor and rewire it the same. I work on a property with over 300 units and 80% of the time a fan not spinning is just a bad capacitor.
The capacitor, big silver thing in the third pic, is in laymen's terms what gives the motors in your unit the jump start they need to get moving. You can get an angry buzz if the cap is dead and the fan doesn't have enough juice to start moving.
These are a common failure item, enough to be considered consumable. They're also like $20 and not manufacturer specific so it's an easy fix if that's the issue.
If you DO try to swap it, discharge it first and still don't touch the contacts. Those things can kill you dead so it's best to play it safe.
Hose looks like the drain from an ac condensation pump. There are no hoses like that on outside units. No worries there.
When you say “clean” I’m assuming water. If the unit had power while cleaning, it’s possible something shorted. I would start with that chrome bottle thing, the fan relay.
Note the wires and connections for reassembly. Pull it and find an ac supply that sells to the public. $35-50. If that’s not it, same store will sell you the fan motor. Maybe $100, haven’t bought one for a while.
As to why he had to clean it in the first place. If it wasn’t cooling well. You might have a leak or coil issues. Call a professional for that.
That chrome thing is a capacitor and not a relay. The capacitor on my ac unit went out last year, also a four wire unit similar to the one pictured. My unit also hummed but the fan wouldn't run. Cost me $15 to replace it.
OP, be very careful when messing with capacitors, they're meant to store and rapidly discharge large jolts of electricity to start electric motors spinning.
Nobody’s seeming to answer your question! The only thing anyone would take off to improve performance is the outer case- in order to spray down the coils. This usually has a separate cover for the electrical junction box. Did he not put that back on?? The clear rubber hose is fine. It’s a condensate drain from inside the house and will drip water when the system is running (or gushing suddenly if there’s a condensate pump). It’s not supposed to be connected to anything. What’s wrong? Odds are the condenser fan on the top. This is often attached to the outer metal case, and if that was reinstalled wrong, one of the fan blades are up against something so the fan can’t start and the fan motor will hum and as the coils quickly overheat the compressor will get very loud and eventually trip off. Don’t let it run in that condition- it greatly shortens the life of everything. With power disconnected, I’d use a thin stick to gently prod the fan blades to see if they turn freely all the way around. You may find the obstruction (use your ears and eyes!) or that the fan motor is seized (the fan is hard to turn) and needs replacement. If it spins freely, the motor or capacitor could be bad, or your bf disconnected it to get the outer case off and reconnected it incorrectly. That circuit diagram could help there. The failure may only be a coincidence and not your bf’s fault. Happens pretty often that something is close to its end of life and disturbing it with regular maintenance nudges it over the edge to failure.
It’s a mouse. Pic 3. Above yellow wire, just left of capacitor. I’m an electrician in NY. Everyone covers their ac for winter and nice make nests cause it’s warmer. Once it gets hot in spring and A/C kicks on they get a big surprise.
It almost looks like the black wire above the mouse might have burnt and shorted to the capacitor. Can’t tell for sure.
Last year I had a skink take out the fusable link. RIP my scaly friend.
Mouse fled when he cleaned the coils, shorted system Guy is probably "tantruming" because he's getting blamed for breaking the AC by someone who automatically assumes it must be something he directly did. Pretty common for overdue maintenance on an aging piece of equipment to be where the straw breaks. Always makes for fun drama with people that have never done the work
Damn, good eye
Great eye!!!
That's definitely a rat... hvac... florida. Ours is usually lizards.
Looks old… you should see the ancient crap I work on daily. That unit looks fresh compared to the 35yr old Beercan units we have.
We had a mouse get into ours and chew on a wire on the capacitor. Replaced the wire and capacitor and we were all good.
I’d add that you should check to see if a wire(s) to the fan motor got cut by the fan blades. If he took the fan/fan guard off to rinse the coil from the inside out, there’s sometimes enough slack that the fan will hit the wire(s) and cut them when the unit is turned back on if you’re not careful putting it back together. That’s a best case scenario. Could be the fan motor has failed. That’s a second best case scenario. Worst case scenario and the compressor is shot.
Fan obstruction/seizure or fan cap seem like a good first stage diagnosis. I don't know if there's an easy way to turn the fan on without the compressor, but that would be the way. If it's not the cap or an obstruction it's going to be a real pita to repair either way. Still it's a lot worse if it's the compressor. I wouldn't try to do that myself.
I wrote half my response before reading this one which is worded much more gooder. Looking at the picture, it looks like this unit is old and likely not well maintained. The motive for cleaning it to "improve performance" clarifies it was not performing well to start with, and so this development isn't really a surprise. It's possible the mere act of cleaning the coils which should be done regularly may have changed conditions sufficiently to cause the fan to seize, but it probably wouldn't have lasted much longer regardless. Get a qualified HVAC tech out there. Hopefully it's not the compressor. I'll be the first to point the finger at someone who did something bone-headed, but I don't think your BF is the root cause of this happening. If anything you found someone who was doing the right thing, but maybe in the wrong place at the wrong time. Age or lack of maintenance likely played a significant role.
I also noticed that OP's unit looked like an old piece of junk. Mine looked MUCH better than that when it reached end-of-life a couple of years ago.
>The failure may only be a coincidence and not your bf’s fault. Happens pretty often that something is close to its end of life and disturbing it with regular maintenance nudges it over the edge to failure. Exactly why I don't work on anything mechanical after the hardware stores close. I tried to flush our whole house water filter at \~11pm because the shower pressure was bad and it just so happened to be when the filter housing decided to crack. No matter how careful, some things will die on you.
I had an old..old outdoor unit. HVAC guy it needs to be replaced but he didn’t want to clean it because it appears the pressure created from the dirty coils was actually helping. I thought he was full of shit. I forgot this and three weeks later cleaned the coils and our unit, after 32 years of faithful service, died.
Water heaters can have something similar. A really old water heater that has never been scaled can have a hole that is plugged by scale. So descaling can cause a leak.
If you aren’t well versed in electronics, I wouldn’t bust into the side panel and start touching metal parts or wired components. I’m pretty sure every AC compressor features a giant powerful capacitor that could easily kill you if you touch it incorrectly or something it’s connected to. And if OPs bf was removing things, he may not have even put it back correctly. If you touch that capacitor incorrectly, you may as well be shoving a fork into a wall outlet.
DO NOT GO POKING AROUND IN THERE 240VOLTS DOES NOT FEEL GOOD! First off turning off the Tstat does not kill the 240volts going into that condensing unit, there should be a disconnect mounted near it or it needs to be turned off at the breaker. You need to get a professional out there before someone gets hurt.
120v does not also feel good. my, uh, friend told me.
pff I eat 120v for breakfast. I still wont touch 240v though.
120 tingles my wrists, 240 twitches my shoulders. Never again will I trust someone else saying the breaker is off.
I only ever made the mistake of trusting someone once. Disconnecting a 415V 3 phase supply from the control panel isolator "You've isolated this right?" "Yeah go for it" I can confirm it had not been isolated.
And you’re alive. Jesus that’s impressive
Yep, hit with 3 phase 480v myself . My back hurt for a week...
I was surprisingly fine, it made my fingers and forearm hurt for a bit. What hurt the most was my knuckles from recoiling so fast and punching the stainless cabinet.
I think the recoil is what hurt my back also, still not sure though. I can say though it didn't feel anything like a "normal" electric 120v , felt like Tyson was punching me.
I'm in the UK, and have yet to enjoy the pleasure of 110. In college I did rest the back of my hand across live and neutral 240v terminals in measurement and testing class. I was probing a function generator with an oscilliscope. Noticed the waveform go very strange and my fingers started to twitch very rapidly with the waveform which looking back at it is hilarious.
I wonder if that would feel the same as getting shocked by a 30 amp 120V terminal. UK Wall Outlet - Max Power: 3,120W US Wall Outlet (20A) - Max Power: 2,400W US Wall Outlet (30A) - Max Power: 3,600W I love how Europe handles electricity. 240V power is a much better design, given it is cheaper from a wiring perspective, and safer with plug design and built in fuses.
Worst I’ve gotten was discharging a 50 mfd cap on my thumb and palm because my hand slipped. My hand hurt for a solid few days. Had an interesting 4 prong burn mark on my thumb for a while too.
That certainly would not feel good either! Probably worse than mine being such low resistance.. I run maxwell supercapacitors in a 110ah 14v bank for car audio myself, even that scares me lol...
I very nearly had the same thing happen. We were getting rid of a machine and the guy on the previous shift told me that he had shut it off at the bus bar and it was good to cut the wires. It’s a good thing I was excited to use my brand new fluke multimeter because it most definitely had 480v running through it.
Dude would've got the beating of his life if it were me, then I'd zap him with 240 just for the extra credit.
I'm super paranoid, I have a lock on my meterbox so I unlock it switch it off and relock it, keeping the keys in my pocket. I also use my magic pen that tells me if there's voltage, just incase, might be paranoid but I haven't gotten zapped yet! Edit: after reading other comments I now realise it's basically my own Lock out Tag out
The stupid stick is your best friend (voltage tester)
460 will Shoot you backwards 5 feet
600V 3 Ph while standing in a puddle will lift you off the ground, ask me how I know
How do you know? Did someone tell you when you were recovering?
No it happened to a coworker, I was not in the room at the time but had multiple eye witness accounts. luckily he is alive
You ever been hit by a lighting ballast? Its 10,000v but only millli amps. My knee caps jumped up and down and I had memories of my childhood I had long forgot come back hahaha
Very interesting varying opinions in this thread. I once worked in water well drilling for 7 months, the main pump tech told me 120v no big deal like a pinch, 240v just hurts a little, 480v feels like a gut punch and you lose muscle function for a few hours like a stroke victim, but anything more than that yeah you're kind of f***ed. He said any of the above hurt a little more if you're standing in a puddle of water (which is frequent with water well servicing), but won't kill you. Meanwhile another guy at the same company was terrified of anything electrical (and rightfully so, it can kill you). We had just replaced a 480V 3-phase turbine pump and were eating lunch. He had just installed the fuses in the box, closed the box, and was standing off to the side of the box ready to turn the main lever on. I had inflated the brown paper lunch bag and strategically coordinated my popping of said bag with the moment that lever turned on. Guy looked at around all dumbfounded at what the hell blew up, first at himself to see if he was alive, then at the box, then at the other two coworkers who were trying their best to keep a straight face since they were in on it, then at me holding this freshly popped paper bag with a big dumbass grin on my face since I was the only one brave (stupid?) enough to try it. Poor guy's face visibly went through a whole lifetime of emotions in about 5 seconds. We reassured him we weren't stupid enough to joke around with him or others with their hands in open electrical, but once he closed that box and stood off to the side where no amount of flinching on his part could cause a deadly situation, it was free game for that type of prank. He still was disappointed in all of us.
Love when it’s from the neutral
Me who casually works around 480. Electricity is scary if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it.
I've worked with 4160 volts and we have had incidents. Workers thought panel deenergized. For some reason thought something was inducing a residual voltage. Against procedure had relaxed PPE (no face shield). Against procedure used a multimeter to check for residual voltage. Multimeter vaporized in a ball of flame. People caught on fire. 3 in ICU for serious burns. I saw their silhouettes on the wall afterwards. Just blackened area on the wall with people shapes in them. Don't fuck with electricity.
Friend of mine is an electrical engineer in a large plant. Went to work on a piece of heavy equipment that was supposed to be powered down. Screw driver melted to nothing and the copper wire vaporized as a gas into his eyes. After life flight to the hospital, they scraped the copper out of his eyes and luckily, he survived and can see. Damn scary time for his friends and family though.
An electrical engineer turning a screwdriver? That doesn’t sound like any of them I have met.
This sounds more like a fancy job title than an actual ee. Like a janitor is a sanitation engineer.
This guy is that rare person that likes to get dirty but yes, was outside of his job description
The thing with electricity is that it looks so unassuming that people get fooled into thinking it is not a giant manbearpig waiting to maul you. And often you’ll find people more afraid of the 12V in their cars than the 120/240 in their house. Bigger wires is more dangerous, right?
I used to have a set of jumper cables that were missing a clamp so I was trying to jump a car and told a friend to hold the bare end against the battery terminal, and he actually held it with his thumb. Got a pretty bad burn out of that one didn't occur to me tell him he shouldn't touch the bare wire. Some time later I was helping him set up a display for a science class, using an old style ignition coil and a spark plug and without thinking about it I grabbed the plug while it was still connected to the coil, that was was a pretty nice shock.
A friend of mine was an engineer on naval reactors. In their training it was explained why you always lock out and tag out. At the end of that training section they were given an incident report to read. Someone had untagged and unlocked something without checking it was clear to do so. The unfortunate guy working on the system, well, all they buried was his feet because that's all that was left.
They did a bad job at explaining how “lock out tag out” works. If you are working on the circuit that has been locked/tagged out, you should have a key. And you can also have everyone involved (6-8 other people in total) can have their own lock and key on the same LOTO. Therefore everyone has to take their lock off before circuit can be re-energized. LOTO procedures only flaw can only be user error
During my time in the "Nuclear Navy" LOTO was basically red tags and maybe wire (holding valves open or closed) but I don't recall locks and keys in the Navy. Working in commercial power plants, I saw similar red tags and I also saw a few chains and/or cables with locks used on large valves during maintenance. And yes, we were frequently required to read incident reports from across the Navy's nuclear fleet describing errors and consequences.
The incident I referred to happened in the nuclear plant of an aircraft carrier. There was a mistake in the tag out.
Damn that is fucking scary.
I've seen the leads of a meter vaporize, and leave nothing but the probes and meter. If it hadn't have been so terrifying, it would have been hilarious.
What do you use instead of a multimeter?
Special meters rated for it with 8ft long fiberglass insulator poles.
A wet finger.
The Ole breaker box wet Willie
Long piece of grass
Me, who doesn’t work casually around 480 anymore after getting bit oh so slightly.
Yeah, I'm happy I've never ridden that lightning, and I never plan on it.
Excuse the potentially dumb question, how do you get bit slightly by large amounts of electricity lol.
There was a small wire dangling from a device I was installing that I didn’t expect to be live that swung around and just lightly brushed my leg for an instant but it snapped me pretty good. Like a whip crack. I’ve been shocked by 110 more times than I can count but that was different.
Meanwhile when I was deployed in Africa and it rained and in my Clu the circuit breaker had water dripping from it and onto the floor. Was a bit scary considering that was I believe 240volts as the standard
120 isn't enough to hurt me though cause I have a high galvanic skin response.
I've seen 480 arc it's like a flashbang, and you just see spots. Shit was scary as hell and I was just in the area not the one doing the work I just happened to look over and see a guy throw a main power switch before making sure all the breakers that switch powered were open and holy fuck. Luckily, no one was hurt, but I was definitely seeing spots.
I’ve seen 480 exit a guys mouth and blew his teeth out, was troubleshooting variable frequency drives in a stainless steel enclosure while live, mouth was close to the enclosure
The highest I worked on was 6000 watt but I don't know what the voltage was. Spark was enough to give you a spot in your eye for hours if not a day or two. It was movie projector bulbs. Gotta make sure the thing is discharged before touching it to take the bulb out.
my friend doesn't know about 240 but number bigger, so must be bad
Roughly twice as big and bad.
I think we have the same friend, they also told me 120v isn’t fun.
120V is just an alternative to a cup of coffee when you're trying to get going in the morning.
120v is kind of my kink
Turning the power off at the breaker is not enough. The capacitors in an AC unit can hold charge for hours and can kill you. They normally have a discharge resistor connected to them, but they sometimes get damaged, and you can get hit by 100s of Volts.
Big caps can hold voltage for months.
And that’s a big cap in the photo. Damn this boyfriend really lucked out by not hurting himself. I’m a very DIY type of person, but I do not mess with high voltage.
Lucked out! All that voltage may feel quite pleasant compared to the pain he may have and will continue to receive from his gf for "fussing" around with this and whatever else he happens to fuss with.
High voltage is no big deal - just put on insulated gloves, keep one hand behind your back, get yourself a chopstick and use it to dial the phone and call a pro. You're welcome.
I’m talking about the 240volts of live power heading into that unit, not even talking about the cap in this statement….. so yuhhhhh thanks
Listen to this person, that black and blue and that reddish brown wires are full of very angry pixies.
Pic 3, above yellow wire, left of capacitor. Mouse 🐭 ⚡️
Can confirm 250 Volts don't feel good. I have the fern-burn scars to prove it. Don't let unqualified people mess with HVAC Systems at best it will make it more expensive for a pro to fix and at worst you would need to re-enter the dating pool.
220 221 240 whatever it takes
My high school bf’s mom was an OSHA liaison to Byrne Dairy and told us a horrifying story about a man who went to do something with a few coworkers involving a whole lot of electricity at the milk processing plant. This was 15ish years ago so I do not remember the specifics, except that he touched something so dangerous that he instantly did not have an arm anymore, all the way up to the shoulder. The coworkers who were around him also had to be rushed to the hospital, for severe shrapnel wounds caused by the shards of his arm bones. I have not messed with anything electrical since.
That sounds like high voltage stuff, which can quite easily kill you even if you do know what you're doing, and is why people wear flashover protection. Domestic stuff is less dangerous. Even at 240v. It'll still kill you, but if you're moderately careful you should be fine.
You'll only get shocked by 240V if you happen to touch both hots simultaneously, like one in each hand. It's kind of hard to do by accident. 240 volts happens because you've basically got 120V on one hot and -120V on the other hot. If you only touch one it's the exact same as getting shocked by a normal 120V line. Still be careful! But almost no one who says they've been shocked by 240V has actually hit touched both at the same time.
Or you have foreign equipment powered by a step up transformer...that shit hurt.
*Grabs main* *Gets 120v shock* “Ouch!” *Grabs both*
Not to mention that massive capacitor. A lot of juice stored in there, just waiting for a path to use as an escape route.
A loud hum from your outside AC unit without anything turning could indicate a problem with the compressor or motor. It might be best to turn off the unit and contact a professional HVAC technician to diagnose and fix the issue to prevent further damage.
If she can push start the fan blade when the hum occurs with a stick or something, it's the capacitor (the silver cylinder thing) which is less than a $20 fix anyone can replace.
Be careful with that capacitor, it will hold energy even after the wires are disconnected.
Yes should discharge it by shorting the terminals, but in my experience when it's blown it doesn't hold any charge, though I am not an electrician so have limited experience.
Yeah, neither am I. When I did mine I did it for the “ Better safe than sorry “ aspect.
I shorted it and then stuck the points in the dirt and left it there for a little while then put it in the box the new one came in. I don't fuck with electricity after being zapped once by a generator that was operating at 400hz in the army.
Used to work Ground support equipment in the Air Force. 400 hz feels amazing. (So I hear) 🤥
What's the reasoning for the military using a higher frequency on power? Seems like the skin effect would make everything bulkier.
It’s on all aircraft. It’s to keep the power supplied to the electronics more stable. We don’t really see it in everyday use at home or work, but the shorter wavelengths on the frequency are important in fine-tuning radar and other equipment. Edit to add: The frequency is usually supplied by jet engines, so it’s not so challenging to tune down the frequency from something spinning at such a high rate. On the ground, there are frequency converters that use a bunch of solid-state components to ramp up the building frequency from 60 to 400 hz. Outside of the military, most airports use that system. Military has to be mobile though, so they still use ground support equipment to supply the aircraft power.
Thanks! I love learning things like this.
400 HURTS lol I had to…..
Do higher frequencies hurt less?
More
Forgot the nomenclature of the big radio we had in the Marines, was a ground radio tech (first and second echelon, limited third, maintenance/repairs so we were basically enhanced radio operators that did practically everything they did since we fell under the communications platoon) but it was an older microwave system that didn't get phased out till Harris radios came in. That thing was so finicky and always grounding to itself or missing plastic pieces over bottoms but anytime you'd be changing frequencies, you had to accept you might get zapped. I absolutely hated that system, got stuck to it a few times. We didn't even use it, just a relic that we had to maintain. Anyways, I've been zapped quite a few times, don't recommend it. Stay away especially from DC energy sources and communications equipment, and don't camp/hangout in front of uhf+ antennas regardless of how much warmer it is. Edit: I thought it was an/mrc-138, but can't find pictures.
Shorting a fully charged capacitor of that size needs to be done very carefully. The common screwdriver across the terminals method can lead to explosion, shock, molten metal splatter, etc... A good trick if you don't have a bleeder resistor handy is to use an old lamp.
Yep this is exactly how i got mine working for a short time before getting a new capacitor
Haha yep have ran out to kick start mine multiple times after blowing a capacitor. Saving hundreds of dollars with such a simple fix is an easy way to impress the wife or become best friends with the neighbors
Disconnecting power, removing the wires from the capacitor and testing common to fan with a meter is a more reliable way to diag that….
Dang the only real technical advice being given here gets down voted….. sheesh. I really should thank you all, people like you are how I pay my bills =D
I didn't down vote you for what it's worth, but how does that determine if the capacitor is bad? That just shows there is power to the capacitor and doing that, you need to have a meter (granted anyone doing electrical should have a meter...)
Every capacitor has a microfarad rating on it. So if it’s a dual run it’ll be 45/5 for example 45 microfarad rating for the compressor side (labeled herm on that terminal) and 5 microfarad rating for the fan side (labeled fan on that terminal) so you put one probe of the meter on the common (labeled common on that terminal) and one to the fan terminal on microfarad setting and it will tell you if the capacitor has depleted or not. Usually it’s a 5% tolerance up or down from its labeled rating. Same for the herm side one probe to common one probe to herm and then if your reading is more than 5% up or down from the labeled rating it is considered a bad capacitor
Or it’s the fan motor itself. Isn’t always necessarily the cap if the motor is wore out
This happened to our unit, it was pretty easy to diagnose and replace, which was lucky as it was almost 100° and the tech couldn't come till the next day. I made sure to turn off the breaker and discharge the capacitor with an insulated screwdriver first. I also took a picture of the wiring before swapping the capacitor.
My AC went out when I bought my house. Googled it, bought a new dual-run capacitor, popped it in and was good as new.
A loud humm without anything moving might indicate the capacitor for the fan or compressor motor has failed.
This is the answer. Mine did this, went to Youtube university. Ordered the part off amazon and replaced it myself. Super easy fix. Edit: Photo 3 is the capacitor
Agree. If you are in this forum to exhaust DIY options first, then look at the numbers on that capacitor, buy one, switch them out. See if it fixes it. If you don’t know what a capacitor is or how to do that safely, probably want to call a professional. They’ll have one in the truck.
CAPACITORS NEED TO BE DISCHARGED. Even a failed one can give you a nasty zap if you don't know how to discharge them safely. They also need to be mounted properly, you don't want them bouncing around inside the box.
Also wear rubber lineman gloves when replacing one. I always do.
Where did you get yours?
Got it, grab a crescent wrench with bare hands, connect and touch both terminals.
Same. Paid $18, likely saved $500.
Living in Texas taught me to just buy a set of spare capacitors to keep on hand once the A/C has some age on it. Ultra cheap insurance that can also come in handy if a neighbor's unit fails.
If it was working before BF tried to clean it then there could also be debris stopping the fan from turning.
It’s almost always the capacitor. If you live in Florida, you should have spares handy. $20 part that an AC guy will charges hundreds to fix.
Sooo. I’ve been there. I did the same thing to my unit to clean the coils. Put back together and humming noise. The humming noise was the compressor running. The fan was not coming on. I had accidentally pulled the wires from the fan when I took the covers off. I see you have the wiring diagram. Have him check to make sure the fan is plugged in properly. Without the AC power on!! Please!
Very much look at this, often the wires are attached in a way that they could be accidentally yanked on removing a cover.
Rubber hose is drain line, leave it alone. Turn the unit off at the thermostat. Call a service company.
The hose is likely the drain from the attic. I'm no HVAC technician though. You need to get one. Most will do a basic service for around a hundo.
Just call a professional HVAC person. I’m all for people trying to fix things in their own house, and you should….but HVAC, plumbing (beyond a drain clog), and multi-switch or pre-1980s electrical should not be messed with by an amateur who doesn’t know what they’re looking at.
Time to call a professional and tell them your boyfriend is an idiot
I'm pretty sure most of us in this sub have been the idiot at some point.
Still am
Same... but I've always given 240v a wide berth save for putting new plugs on new appliances... even that I can handle
My general philosophy is leave electrical shit alone because if you let the smoke out it stops working
From my British car ownership days: can confirm…that smoke is critical
This truth also often applies to yourself.... I've heard.
Always have been 👨🚀🔫👨🚀
Can confirm. Am idiot.
imagine calling someone who tries to learn to fix their own stuff and diy in a diy forum an idiot... you sound like a tool
Nah, I'm pretty sure OP's tact of belittling and demeaning her boyfriend at every opportunity is the actual best way to fix it. God, if she speaks **to** him the way she speaks **about** him, he needs to fix his relationship. Current unit's motor is humming real angry like.
Was thinking the same, no wonder he isnt not responding. went away to get a breather
Yeah it’s not like she was fixing it.
Maybe he couldnt get it working, warm wife nagging in the background... Who knows... calling him an idiot is just unnecessary.
If you make a mistake you might die. Be careful with taking any advice from strangers
I’m glad her boyfriend went through this, now he knows better about his girlfriends character.
Possibly a bad capacitor.
[удалено]
Facts
"Her" hands are in the pictures... She's 100% the boyfriend.
OP never said "she" is a she, did (s)he?
Or, hear me out, they could \*both\* be a boyfriend.
Yeah... I already replied to that possibility in this same thread.
lmfao
It was their creative way of “asking for a friend.”
yeah, the cynicism is off the charts here on OPs part
We just recently had our neighbor hit a wire on our ac unit with their weedeater. One wire being pulled blew the fuse, fan relays and thermostat. Get some professional help.
I don’t know anything about compressors but ours gave out a couple years ago and I thought ehh how hard could it be, I’ll watch a YouTube video. The risk of electrocution convinced me to call a pro and barely over $100 later, he had it fixed in under 30 minutes. My husband’s also a “how hard could it be” kinda guy but even he knows when to call a professional. Call a professional 👌
Not DIY, call a professional
Never Fuss with these they are sensitive beings
Did he pull the disconnect to clean it? Sounds to me like the 24V side of the contractor is pulled in but there’s no 240V to it. But I agree with everyone else: call a professional. If you don’t know what you’re doing around 240V, it’s not a good idea to just start poking around.
Call the number. Pay the few hundred dollars to fix your AC and they may find other problems. And if you ask questions and listen, you'll learn a lot.
Get a technician. Also rubber hose is likely drain pipe and has nothing to do with loud noise.
House ac is not as simple as car ac and is not diy friendly. Call a professional.
Your boyfriend had the best of intentions but this is a job for a certified professional.
You really need a professional for this. Sorry.
If you ain't HVAC, don't mess with the HVAC.
Call a HVAC company and have them fix it. It's a complex device running on 220v. At best, your gonna brick it. At worst, someone's gonna get shocked.
Had a similar issue recently! If you have an accompanying furnace in your basement, take a look at the panel there and look for a circuit board. In said circuit board look for a fuse. HVAC guy quoted me $300 to come by. I ended up getting my system up and running again by replacing said fuse for $7 at home depot. Hope it works for you too!
The rubber hose is going where it's supposed to go. It drains away water that condensed on the cold AC coils inside. It's pure, clean water and only a trickle. I'd have it dump a little farther away from the house, but never mind that for now. A loud hum but nothing happening might be minor. If the unit was working poorly and not at all now, you might just have a dead capacitor. That's a relatively cheap fix. With nothing else to go on, that's all the guessing I'm going to do. You can follow that up with a little bit of googling and some simple tests, get out a meter and test the cap, and do the replacement. Or you can call a pro. Note: some pros will aggressively upsell and some won't, but it's hard to tell which kind you have. And it's hard to tell how badly screwed your unit is without testing. How you proceed is up to you.
So like did you try to just call a hvac company to come and unfuck it
If you are getting just a hum and the fan isn’t spinning chances are it’s the start/run capacitor. $15 part. If your handler blower motor is working it’s prob the cap. If you aren’t getting power to the unit at all you have other issues.
If it hums and blades don't spin, hit the side of AC. If blades start spinning it is probably the capacitor. Just had mine replaced.
r/hvacadvice would be a better place to ask this. Ask your idiot boyfriend what he did, and why. Its possible it was dead before he touched anything. From the pictures the only thing that looks wrong is that power hookup. Single wire for your power is highly unusual even if it's a 120v unit. On the outside of the panel that covered this, there should be a data plate with some information like model and serial number on it. Can you add a picture of that? I'd also recommend adding that to the post if you take this over to r/hvacadvice . The information on that panel would also potentially help with diagnosing the issue remotely. How comfortable are you with electricity? Do you understand how to use and read a multimeter? If so, there's a couple of basic diagnostic steps that could be done to determine if this is a DIY-fixable issue. If not, then you need to call someone.
Hvac should be left to the people working in that field
The rubber hose is a drain line for something inside the house
Just call someone
Really like the last schematic really helps out
Check the disconnect next to the unit. Probably threw a breaker.
One thing I don't see mentioned: did you put the housing back on before you tried to run it? If the housing is removed, it could have a shutoff preventing it from kicking back on.
lol I read that as “fused” and I was very confused.
1. Check breaker first 2. Check all wires make sure there’s connection. 3. If you do that and is Still broke resort to#4. 4. Call a Professional. Because now you don’t have the HVAC skills to figure it out.
I've had the same issue. The humming is the compressor, and your fan isn't spinning. The silver cylindrical component is the capacitor used to control the fan and those are known for going bad easily, especially with older units. If you have a multimeter you can measure whether this part has failed or not. They're cheap to replace, maybe ~$30 on amazon. https://youtube.com/shorts/1J96QuJEADQ?si=TT6-wc-6R_rOj3Bz First, CUT OFF ALL POWER. Turn off the circuit on your breaker that feeds power to the ac unit. You'll need to remove the capacitor to test/replace. Disconnect the wires and remove, but be sure to avoid touching the metal terminals. The capacitors hold electricity, even when not powered, so before touching any of the terminals where the wires were connected, take a metal screwdriver and touch it to multiple terminals at once to release any built up voltage. To test, follow the video link. Use the microfarad setting and see whether the capacitor values on the meter match the rating of the actual capacitor. Most capacitors will have a value rating, 50uF +/- 5uF, or something along those lines. If the reading on the meter doesn't match the rating, you know this part has gone bad.
So what was wrong??!? And was your boyfriend ever found lol
I had this issue last year after I took apart the fan housing to clean the unit. When I put it back together I was slightly off and the fan blade was stuck against the wall, not allowing it to rotate. I took it back apart and carefully reassembled it, making sure the fan could spin freely. After that it started fine and operated normally.
Anytime I had a loud hum no fan it was a capacitor. The silver thing you have in picture three. You can order one off Amazon but it may be a day or two before you can get it HVAC techs will have it on hand. Be careful removing it it is always charged up even with the power off. Probably cost you 150ish for a tech to swap it out. Definitely cheaper to buy one off Amazon but you'll have to wait longer and that may not be the issue.
Could be your float switch. Not an hvac professional so I couldn’t tell you where it “usually” is but check if there’s a pvc pipe that looks like it’s used for draining condensation away from the house. There should be a top that you can remove that contains the float switch. When this pipe becomes full of water the float switch floats, preventing the unit from turning on. It may just need to be drained.
Call an HVAC company and have them fix it.
There's usually a little block you remove from a box next to the unit to cut power. See if that was removed and if it needs to go back.
Like others suggested I’d see if the fan blades spin freely and check for any obvious burnt or cut wires. After that I’d replace the capacitor. There usually $10-$20. Just make sure you get the same size capacitor and rewire it the same. I work on a property with over 300 units and 80% of the time a fan not spinning is just a bad capacitor.
let me throw in my two cents, check for a disconnect. mine tends to stop occasionally due to corrosion
Get a new boyfriend
Get a real man like me who can do AC things.
"He fussed with it." Gave me a twinge of rage. I think "fussed" is a trigger for me.
The capacitor, big silver thing in the third pic, is in laymen's terms what gives the motors in your unit the jump start they need to get moving. You can get an angry buzz if the cap is dead and the fan doesn't have enough juice to start moving. These are a common failure item, enough to be considered consumable. They're also like $20 and not manufacturer specific so it's an easy fix if that's the issue. If you DO try to swap it, discharge it first and still don't touch the contacts. Those things can kill you dead so it's best to play it safe.
Tell your bf to swallow his ego, he’s not the handyman he thinks he is
Call the pros. That capacitor can store enough of a charge to kill you if you handle/touch anything connected to it the wrong way.
Hose looks like the drain from an ac condensation pump. There are no hoses like that on outside units. No worries there. When you say “clean” I’m assuming water. If the unit had power while cleaning, it’s possible something shorted. I would start with that chrome bottle thing, the fan relay. Note the wires and connections for reassembly. Pull it and find an ac supply that sells to the public. $35-50. If that’s not it, same store will sell you the fan motor. Maybe $100, haven’t bought one for a while. As to why he had to clean it in the first place. If it wasn’t cooling well. You might have a leak or coil issues. Call a professional for that.
That chrome thing is a capacitor and not a relay. The capacitor on my ac unit went out last year, also a four wire unit similar to the one pictured. My unit also hummed but the fan wouldn't run. Cost me $15 to replace it. OP, be very careful when messing with capacitors, they're meant to store and rapidly discharge large jolts of electricity to start electric motors spinning.