[Joeb1983]

HELP!! We moved into a 640 sq. ft. 1 bedroom apartment from a 1,000 sq. ft. town house about 7 months ago. At first the a/c did not cool at all. It actually got hotter with it running. They said it was a dirty air filter causing the problem. I called b/s, and asked them to check the charge. Sure enough they had to add refrigerent. It still never seemed to cool right after that. It would run constantly just to keep the apartment at 78-80 degrees. After 5 months of argueing with the leasing office and paying insanely high power bills (usually around $100.00-127.00; more than our previouse home, wich the highest bill we had there was $94.00 in July! It is even more than our friends 3 bedroom 2 bath house!)They finally admitted that it was "undersized for a 3rd floor apartment because heat rises and we get the sun",so they changed my 2-ton outside unit with a new 2.5-ton. The inside unit is un-touched. We just received our power bill in October and it is $97.18, which is still higher than we have ever paid before the move. Instead of running constantly, it now runs for about 30 minutes and is off for about 10 minutes. Today around 4pm. It hit me the a/c has not shut off in a while, so I put my hand up to the vent to see if it was cooling, and there was no air flow! I took the cover off the a/c to see if the filter was clogged and to my amazement I found the filter FROZEN to the condenser and the condenser being a solid block of ice! I turned off the unit and thawed it with a hair dryer and it seems to be back to the normal usual. The air out the vents never seemed to come out strong, usually you stop feeling it about a foot and a half away. It has been about 70 degrees outside, the filter was not that dirty and all the vents in the house are open. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[tsa7man]

First.. you need to have a contractor be sure the unit has the proper refrigerant charge, and the air flow looks to be lacking as per your descriptions... which can be caused by dirty filters, closed / obstructed feed and return grills, duct dampers all open / adjusted properly... and lastly, wrong blower speed or faulty blower motor not turning the proper speed for the proper CFM of air flow of aprox 400 CFM per ton of cooling. ( as well, duct sizing could be incorrect, but that's another issue that a good contractor can check )

[Joeb1983]

Finally paid someone to have a look since we had gone through a cold winter and were now back to hot summer. Turns out squirrels or rats had been living in the attic and had chewed up all my a/c ducting thus explaining the lack of airflow... So I have been cooling and heating my attic this whole time... Thanks apartment maintenance!

[Joeb1983]

Finally paid someone to have a look since we had gone through a cold winter and were now back to a hot summer. Turns out squirrels or rats had been living in the attic and had chewed up all my a/c ducting thus explaining the lack of airflow... So I have been cooling and heating my attic this whole time... Thanks apartment maintenance!

[hvac1000]

That was a long time ago. You must have spent some bucks on utility bills.