Alright, my two ton Trane central A/C was installed in May 2007. Almost every summer since then, I've had various issues with it, nearly exclusively with the condenser unit outside. I have a bit of a bad memory when it comes to this particular subject as I wasn't always the one that was home when it was replaced/repaired, and I have zero electrical knowledge, so bear with me.
For the last two to three weeks, the breaker that controls the condenser has been getting tripped. Sometimes it's three or four days in between trips, sometimes it does it multiple times in a day. I had service techs out twice, once about two weeks ago when it did it the first time and once yesterday. The guy that came out first said everything was fine and there was nothing wrong, didn't charge me for the visit and left. The one yesterday checked everything again and said the same thing, didn't charge me, and left.
Fast forward to today, I woke up and the A/C was set on 74 degrees, but it was 77 in the house. I went out to flip the breaker off and back on, and it wouldn't flip back on. I took the cover off the circuit breaker, flipped the main, removed the (presumably bad) breaker and drove out to Lowes to replace it. Got a new one, came home, installed it, flipped the main back on and it did the same shit the old one did (tripped immediately and wouldn't even click on then trip, just stayed tripped). Called my buddy who is more knowledgeable with A/C and electrical stuff than I am as he just re-did the majority of his house and had done some of those things himself. While going through things top to bottom, it was discovered that when the A/C was installed, they put a 30-amp unit in and ran it off of a 20-amp breaker. Suddenly explains why every summer when it gets really hot, it freezes up and over-works the pump that drains water from the air handler if you turn it down past 74 degrees. Also why almost every summer, there is some sort of issue with the A/C itself and parts going bad or stuff needing tune ups.
If that's the culprit, now the problem is I can't find any writing on the insulation for those wires that go into the breaker (or out of the disconnect on the exterior of the house behind the condenser unit on the concrete patio) that tells me what gauge the wiring is. I don't know if I can replace it with a 30-amp breaker without melting wires and running a fire risk, so I'm basically stuck until tomorrow when I pay an astronomical service charge for an electrician to tell me whether this will be a $15 repair cost or an unknown repair cost (removing and re-wiring for the air conditioner itself with the proper gauge wire for that size breaker/power load)...
Anybody with electrical knowledge, does that make sense to you or should I be looking at other stuff too?