I have a Goodman CPKE30-1b heat pump, about 14 yrs old, dual run capacitor.

A few weeks ago when we had our first hot spell in a while, I noticed the a/c was no longer blowing cold (it had been) so I went out and checked and the compressor was not running, though the fan was. I was going out of town for a few days so shut it off. When I returned it seemed to be running fine, cooled the house down 5 degrees in about an hour.

We then had a cool spell where the a/c did not run for a week or so. On the first hot day I turned the a/c back on, at first it was blowing cold air but a half hour or so later I noticed it was not. I checked outside and this time the compressor was running but not the fan. Turned the thermostat off for a few minutes, then back on - this time the compressor and fan both ran for a couple minutes, then the fan speed dropped for a couple more minutes, then stopped with the compressor still running.

There are some spider webs in the control unit that I am about to clean, but I don't see how they would cause problems like that. I am also about to perform some voltage checks on the cap and contactor, which results I will report back, but I thought I would post this now in case there is a common problem that could cause this type of erratic behavior.

Ok an update - the system ran fine for a half hour after it was off for two days, the house temp has dropped 2 degrees in that time - I don't have an accurate thermometer to read the temp at the registers.

Next time I checked at around 40 minutes the compressor was still running but the fan was not. I turned off the system and am going to restart it in a few minutes to see what happens.

It seems the problem only appears after the system has been on for a while.

The compressor comes on when I push the contactor with the system set to off, is this normal?

OK I pulled the run cap and had it checked, the fan side was at 1.9 so I put in a new one - I assume this could have caused the problem I was experiencing, right?

What was the rating on the cap? Definitely a good place to start.

It was 34/5, and the compressor side reading was 40 which I guess could have accounted for the one time the compressor wouldn't run. That makes sense, right? - capacitance too high, hard start - too low, early shutoff.

Since then the problem has always been the fan shutting off early.

Well it would appear replacing the cap has solved the problem, it finally got hot enough to run the a/c for a while and it has been going for over an hour without any problems.

Good to hear. Thanks for the update.