My a/c has stopped working (both the compressor and the blower) at about 1:40 pm and started again at 3:40 the last 2 days. The house is in Palm Desert CA and the outside temp has been over 110F both days. When it stops working I can't even turn the blower fan on from the thermostat. Its an old unit but it doesn't get a lot of use (since it's a 2nd home) and we haven't had problems with it before. By the time the repair guy got here yesterday it had started working again and he couldn't find anything wrong (just a quick once-over though and no $ charged). Any idea what might be causing this? PDJIM

Is this a package unit on your roof? Do you have an Edison box on your unit? (Edison box cycles off unit during peak demand.)

Is this a package unit on your roof? do you have an Edison box on your unit? (Edison box cycles off unit during peak demand.)
No, its not a package unit and there's no Edison box.

My a/c has stopped working (both the compressor and the blower) at about 1:40 pm and started again at 3:40 the last 2 days. The house is in Palm Desert CA and the outside temp has been over 110F both days. When it stops working I can't even turn the blower fan on from the thermostat. Its an old unit but it doesn't get a lot of use (since its a 2nd home) and we haven't had problems with it before. By the time the repair guy got here yesterday it had started working again and he couldn't find anything wrong (just a quick once-over though and no $ charged). Any idea what might be causing this? PDJIM
You may have a dirty condenser. Wash the outside unit down with water it may be really dirty which will cause a high head pressurre and the unit to go off on internal overload.

Thanks, I'll give it a try and see what happens tomorrow.

Do you know if the utility can turn off your power to your AC, so you get better electric rates?

Edison could turn our a/c off if we had one of their summer program boxes but we don't. (we're not here much during the summer). Called Edison to see if they had any suggestions and they said that they haven't had to do any cut-backs yet this year anyway. They suggested we call an electrician even though we've had a HVAC guy out already. Thought we'd see what you guys have to say though before we get someone else out.

I thought it might be the utility company, until I read the last post. Could it be that you have a programmable t-stat ? Perhaps it is programmed at an extremely high temp during that time ?

T-stat is programmable but the programs are overridden when we have it in "hold" mode (which we do). I thought that might be the problem too and called the Mfrs "help line" yesterday. They walked me through their diagnostics to confirm that the T-stat is working OK and it is. Thanks for your input