I noticed the other night that my 14 yr old Bryant heat pump was not cooling when I got home. The fan on the unit was not spinning, but I could hear the unit making a buzz. When I used a stick reach the fan to rotate it, it actually spun up to running speed, but never did cool the air in the house. I have switch the thermostat for cool only, heat only (tried to start heat, then back to cold), shut off breaker for awhile in case something was overheated, etc. No luck Any help to assist in some steps for diagnosis will be helpful. I had problems once before, and the technician almost had me paying for a new compressor before he determined it was a bent pin on the thermostat that occurred at a previous visit. I would like to learn a few things before calling in a service person if I can

Thx in advance.

I noticed the other night that my 14 yr old Bryant heat pump was not cooling when I got home. The fan on the unit was not spinning, but I could hear the unit making a buzz. When I used a stick reach the fan to rotate it, it actually spun up to running speed, but never did cool the air in the house. I have switch the thermostat for cool only, heat only (tried to start heat, then back to cold), shut off breaker for awhile in case something was overheated, etc. No luck Any help to assist in some steps for diagnosis will be helpful. I had problems once before, and the technician almost had me paying for a new compressor before he determined it was a bent pin on the thermostat that occurred at a previous visit. I would like to learn a few things before calling in a service person if I can

Thx in advance.
The fan not working but working when you rotated it it ran is caused by a bad start capacitor (http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/waterheater_1954_2484642) for the fan. Some units have a dual start capacitor (http://www.cshincorporated.com/index.php/cPath/120). One half of it works the fan and the other half works the compressor. This could cause the problems you are experiencing. Turn the power of to the outside unit and check to see if it has a dual start capacitor. If it does replace the start capacitor (http://www.wikihow.com/Check-a-Start-Capacitor) with a like value and the air conditioner should work like it should.

Your compressor is probably hot and may have tripped on the internal overload in the compressor, you may need to shut down the a/c for several hours to have it reset, the run capacitor for the fan motor sounds like it is the source of the problems, the capacitor is the metal canister with wires attached to the top. Be sure to disconnect power to unit before servicing. Mike

Thx for the assistance. The replies in this thread have resulted in a successful fix. The dual start cap was bad and replacement corrected it.

Thx Again

You are very welcome. Thanks for using Ask Me. :)