Hi. I am a housewife in need of help please. My living and dining rooms are not cooled enough during hot days. My main bedroom is cooled much better as cool air vents are nearest the AC unit. The living room space opens high to the ceiling and the loft, so it is quite a big space to cool. I can also hear some popping sounds whenever the condenser outside my house turns on. Is there a problem of my unit?
Can somebody please advise me on what to check? I am good with following directions so I should be OK. Should I clean the outside unit by hosing down? The filter is always clean. I probably have 2 vents blocked, should I open them?

Thanks for your help.

Open your all vents. Ceiling fans would also help. Hose off the condensing unit coils. Just don't get water on motor or any other electrical patrs. Disconnect power first. I suggest calling in a tech for the popping noise. Possible electrical and not best for diy project.

The noise you mentioned can be caused by the compressor. A scroll compressor is a little noisier that a recip compressor. So if you do have a scroll compressor you can expect it to be a little noisy when it turns on and turns off, a some what loud for just a second. And like esquire2 told you above all of your vents should be open in the summer time because you need the air going across the coil to keep it from freezing with ice therefore shutting down on your air. In the winter it is different you can close one or two of your vents when you are heating.

Thanks so much. I will try to hose the coils. I already opened the vents. I will monitor today. Another concern I have is that the cool air that comes out directly from the vents is only about 66F. The bedroom is at 72F and the living room is at 81F. This was last night. The outside humidity is 57%, my living room is 58%, my bedroom is 62% and the cool air that comes out of the vent is at 83%!! Why is the cool air very humid? Do I have condensation? What can be happening? If I call a tech, I would like to understand first so they won't throw me so much techno babble and charge me $$$. Do you also know any estimates on how much it may cost me, please?
I will keep monitoring today.

How old is the system? Did it used to work better with the vents closed? We have 3 of the 4 bedrooms in our house shut off, and the A/C works fine. Of course, they may have been shut off when the tech did the start up. It may have lost enough Freon that the coil is freezing up. I would try opening the vents. If that doesn't work, you will need to get a tech out next week. If it is low on Freon, it will be expensive. Not only does the government keep the price artificially high, I think the tech must find a repair a leak before adding Freon to the system. An older system may have multiple, small leaks. If the system is over 10 years old, the tech may not be ripping you off if he says it isn't worth fixing.

If you feel that you need a tech to check things out get a name from friends or someone that you know that has had work done lately and find out who they used and if they were satisfied. I actually believe that most technical people are basically honest but they have different thoughts about what is the best things to do for heir customers. One guy will think that doing a $300 repair job on a twelve year old unit is the best for you, another tech will think it is a waste to spend that much on an old unit and that putting that money towards a new unit would be doing a favor for you. So you have to make up your own mind as to what to do.

Thanks guys. I will have a tech come out this week. Do you know why my cold air is coming out very humid?