Hi

Our air conditioner cools, but does not seem to be able to remove much moisture. Yesterday, our the compressor stopped working and the fan inside the house did not stop. An air conditioner repair man came and found a bad connection on the compressor outside and found that a circuit board was bad, which is why the circulation fan kept working. He reconnected the wires and the compressor seems to work just fine and comes on and goes off as it should. He said he would have to order a new circuit board, but recommended leaving the fan running, so that when it got warm the compressor outside would come on and cool the house. He further said, that the fan, by itself, does not draw much more power than a ceiling fan, but the inside fan just won't stop running until the old circuit board is replaced..

What I have noticed since, no matter how low I set the temperature, within reason of course, the compressor does indeed reduce the temperature to the preset value, but it does not remove much moisture. In fact, normally our humidity inside the house is around 50%, but today, no matter how hard I tried, the humidity stays at about 64%. Though it does feel quite cool, but somewhat sticky. When I go outside, I notice that very little water is draining out of that pipe that empties the drip pan below the condenser. The pan does not appear to be over flowing either. We had that happen recently in the past, but that just is not happening this time. In fact it overflowed just a week-and-a-half ago, and a friend used a Wet Vac to suck the water out of the pan. We have had rain almost every day for two weeks, and the humidity outside is quite high.

Yet, I am still stumped. How in the world can the air conditioner cool, but not remove the moisture? When cold air passes along the cooling coils, why is it not condensing, but the air cools? By the way the air conditioner repair man found that the temperature in the cavity that houses the coils is 52 degrees. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You are blowing a certain amount of the moisture back in to the air by running the fan all the time when the outside unit shuts off. Some moisture does stay in the pan. Also check your drain line to be sure it is not restricted.

Drop the indoor blower speed to low and it will take a lot more moisture out of the air but it will not push the cool air around into the house that well.