My Outside AC , which is a pretty old unit( 15+) recently started tripping the circuit breaker. If I go and turn the circuit breaker back on the unit will run for about five minutes then trip the circuit breaker again.

Is it time to replace the unit? My AC repair guy did tell us last summer that the unit is on its last leg, but when he checked it a few weeks go it was working after getting some Freon added to it.

Thanks

Probably have something shorting out. May be time to replace unit. You may be spending a lot of money keeping it going at this point. A 15 yr. old unit has served its purpose and the newer units are so much more efficient. You may check the breaker as it may be faulty. Good Luck

A fifteen year life is not very long for a unit that has been serviced regularly. And units that are that old can be as high as 14 to 16 S.E.E.R. which is still considered very good today.
Your problem could be several things but I think I would have it checked before condemming it to the trash pile.

First of all a 15 year old unit is about a 10 SEER unit. The higher efficiency units of 12 to 22 SEER are much newer so you might consider the replacement unit based on the future energy savings. Make sure they replace the inside coil and they will probably need a larger suction line for the higher SEER unit so my call is to replace the indoor coil with one that matches the outside unit and also replacing the line set. This way you will have a complete new system.

Now I have no idea how qualified your repair man was but I am going to mention this. When he checked your unit a few weeks ago the temperature could have been cooler. It is a very good possibility he over charged the unit with refrigerant/freon and now it is running high head pressure causing the breaker to trip.

I all my years of service work my service men and myself found many times that to many companies overcharge A/C units when the temperature is cooler only to have them fail to run properly when the temperature outside gets higher.

In order to check this you need tools you do not have and the knowledge to use them. The only thing you can do is have the same person check your unit out again to see if it is overcharged. I figure there should be some type of warranty since they were just out there a few weeks ago.

We offered free service calls on all repair work we did for a minimum of 30 days and if we replaced a part we covered the part for one year including free labor for replacing the part we just sold the customer.

Just for fun and a trick question for your repair man is to ask him if he uses superheat or subcooling to set the correct freon/refrigerant charge. If he does not know what you are talking about just tell him to leave because he does not know what he is doing.

Ditto HVAC1000, there are many reasons to trip a breaker , loose wires, over charge of refrigerant, bad breaker, dirty condenser, bad capacitor, burnt contacts in contactor, bad condenser fan motor and bad compressor. It requires an experienced service person to find the problem. At the age of your equipment I would not put a lot of money into it. Mike.

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Originally Posted by desiguy2447

My Outside AC , which is a pretty old unit( 15+) recently started tripping the circuit breaker. If I go and turn the circuit breaker back on the unit will run for about five minutes then trip the circuit breaker again.

Is it time to replace the unit? My AC repair guy did tell us last summer that the unit is on its last leg, but when he checked it a few weeks go it was working after getting some Freon added to it.

Thanks

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Your braker could be worn out might have to talk to an electrician