Any thoughts/advice appreciated...

House built in 2007, HVAC system is original to the house.  We purchased house in February of this year.  3-levels, ~4,100 sq-ft, (2) HVAC systems.  Finished basement and main level are served from one system with a zone controller (?), and upper level served from it's own system.  Both are Goodman units.

Back in June I noticed the unit serving the main level and basement wasn't blowing any air and the coils were frozen.  Made a claim on our home warranty, they sent a tech out and he filled the system, saying we were almost empty of refrigerant.

~2 weeks ago I noticed that yet again it wasn't blowing cold air and the coils were frozen.  We currently have some extra family living with us while their house is being built, so having the A/C off isn't really an option.  After some quick late-night troubleshooting I realized the condensate line was clogged between the unit and the condensate pump.  Fixed that, melted coils, working again.

Coils freeze up again the next day.  BIL and I clean out condensate pan with a shopvac and give the condensate line a good blowing out.  Clean as a whistle.  Coils freeze up again.

Home warranty place sends out another tech.  This guy says we have a leak in our evaporator coils.  He comes out 2 days ago to 'patch it' and all seems well until tonight when I see that the coils are frozen yet again.  I just called our home warranty people yet again...

I also went out to the outside unit tonight and noticed that the refrigerant line was frozen out there as well (see photos), right to the compressor.

The evaporator coils seem clean but I don't have access to the intake side (the side under the "A" frame) unless I really start taking things apart.  We do change our air filters every 2-3 months; most recent change was in July.


This downstairs unit was apparently installed by monkeys.  The air handler leaks air out of every seam and crevice, the refrigerant line wasn't insulated where it connects to the evaporator coils section so it froze easily, the lines of the outdoor units aren't properly insulated...it's a mess. I sealed up a lot of the air leaks Monday evening with some foil tape (thinking it was fixed and good to stay closed...) and found myself opening the unit to verify the coils were frozen again not 36 hours later.

If we let the coils thaw out we can run the system again and it gets the house cool...until they freeze again.

We're planning on this being our 'forever home' and personally I'd love to dump these POS Goodman units and get a few super-efficient top-of-the-line quality units that I can easily maintain and are sized and installed correctly, but unfortunately that isn't in the finances for the moment.



Any thoughts?  Photos below:


Frozen coils:



Shot of line going into compressor:



Line going into condenser unit:

I have seen compressor cover in ice and still functioned well after it was de-iced.

That's called flood back. The evap is to evaporate the liquid into a vapor. Without airflow across it, it cannot do that. So now liquid is flooding back to the compressor.

It's fine. Your hvac company should be trying to find the leak. And a leaky schrader is not the answer. I do commercial refer and hvac. that leak is big and should be found easily. If the tech onsite cannot find it, call his boss and tell him you want a more expierenced tech that can find the leak.

I've seen compressors 100% iced up and still functioned. Don't worry. Do not have him tell you it's bad. Have him do an efficiency test on it. It should pull into a vacuum and hold and not leak by internally during the test.

And if it truly is bad, try to have them cover it for not finding the all the leaks which caused the flood back which killed it. They will say I fixed the leak in their defense, but they failed to find it 3 times. If they fixed it right, this wouldn't be happening.

101% sure you are fine though.

Fix that leak

And bashing goodman for having a leak is like bashing Chevy for have a flat tire. It's not the manufactures fault you ran a nail over.

Goodman systems aren't bad. Not the top of the line but not bad. Sometimes they are installed poorly though.

And, even the top of the line system sometimes has an unexpected failure.

As already mentioned, get someone out there who knows how to diagnose a system properly.

If it's your forever house then bite the bullet and buy a Trane or American Standard.

So he can have a different sticker?  Any unit is only as good as the installer. He needs to get his unit fixed correctly.

Restricted sale units are not all that much better when it comes to quality.

They are more likely to be installed by a factory trained person.

I prefer Rheem over other brands.

They realized that using an actual one pole relay with quality contacts was better than the typical contactor with two lousy copper contacts.

There is no reason to open both legs of a 240 device for control.

You still need to have a disconnect that opens both  "adjacent" to the equipment.

Low on refrigerant or airflow issue. 

and here is the difference between residential and commercial. Dumb opinions. Break all the legs. So rheem is better for breaking one leg because it's a cheaper relay vs a good quality contractor that breaks 2 legs? Weird. I'd rather break both legs or the 3 legs for safety reasons and ease of service. But that's just me.

We rarely use our system in the winter, had an issue late on summer like this, turns out my filter was all clogged up. Cleaned filter and have not had any issues since!

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There is no reason to break all the legs and "good quality contactors" are a rarity in residential units.

Many use plain copper contact surfaces.

In commercial work contactors have much better contact material and since many are 3-phase you may as well break them all though you could do two out of three and it would function fine.

Larger commercial units are routinely 440 V, 3-phase.

The use of a high quality single contact relay is far better than the typical junk used in residential equipment.

We'll agree to disagree then. Carry on

you'll never get a quality tech out there from a home warranty company.  they will hit you with $50 service call fees until you give up and go with a reputable shop

Thanks for the opinions everyone.

Hasn't frozen up since I made the post, but I already had the call in to the company.  This was their third visit (thankfully all under a single $65 visit fee), and they used a different tech this time.  I never met the first tech but I was there when this guy showed up and he seemed to know his stuff.  He changed out the capacitor and fixed a superheat issue; he said that there was actually too much refrigerant in the system so it was cooling too much.  Maybe the last guy overfilled it?  He did say it would have to cycle longer now that it won't cool so fast but it should remove the humidity a bit better.

It's been about 30 hours since he was here and it hasn't frozen up yet.  He wasn't kidding; it's taking a good bit longer to get the house cooler now than after the second tech visited.  Or it could just be that it was 90F outside today.

Hopefully this is the last visit.


You guys are absolutely right; I shouldn't bash Goodman for something like this.  Just me being frustrated.