Posted: 10/11/2011 9:32:50 AM EDT
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I have a 4 year old 13 Seer 2.5 ton system (Nordyne). For the past year it has not been running much as the house has been vacant and I keep the thermostat at 85 degrees.
We were at the house doing some work a few days ago and I turned the thermostat down to 78 (the inside temp at the time was only 81). The blower came on and stayed on, but the compressor unit outside was squealing and making some unnatural noises. I looked at the unit and the fan on top wasn't on. Eventually it turned off but the blower motor inside (air handler) was still running. I checked breakers, overflow water pan switch/float, etc. - everything seemed fine. I shut it all off, waited 5 minutes, turned on again and it did the exact same thing, with strange noises from the outdoor condenser unit, no fan running on it, but the blower in the air handler working fine. Ideas? Probably some fucking high-tech control module/switch that'll cost me an arm and a leg - grrrr. |
| Sounds to me (from here any way) like your condenser fan motor has croaked. When the motor bearings start to gall and lock up they can make some pretty bad noises. The indoor fan is supposed to run anytime your thermostat is giving it a "call for cooling". It has no idea whether the outdoor unit is running or not. I'd turn your unit off until you can get a new condenser fan motor replaced. It's possible it could be a bad fan motor capacitor but they don't usually make many noises when a capacitor craps out The capacitor typically swells up on the top of the housing by the terminals..... but not always. |
