YMT's A/C

[YourMathTeacher]

Our central air unit was down all day yesterday, which was rather stifling in the Florida heat, especially for the baby. The A/C guy came out this morning and said that we may have a freon leak. He added more freon for now, but he said this recharge may only last a few days if the leak is bad. He recommended either replacing the coil on the current 10-year-old unit for $1800, or replacing the whole unit (inside and out) for $4000.

I certainly can't afford either of these scenarios, so my prayer is that the freon charge will hold long enough for me to either get a second opinion, or secure a loan. With the Redemption Florida State tournament coming to my house this coming Friday and Saturday, I am hopeful that the A/C will at least make it through the weekend.

[Nameless]

praying

[COUNTER_SNIPER]

YMT,

I'll definitely be praying for this.  However, before you let the A/C guy start replacing anything, request that he pressurize the system (it will leave you without A/C for at least 24 hours), and determine where the leak is.  My family has been having this same issue for a year and a half now, and we've "invested" about $6,000 into this problem and it's STILL doing the same thing with a brand new A/C unit ($4,000).  They replaced the copper line from underneath our building as well ($1,500) in addition to several doses of freon.  We talked to someone at a different company, and they said they can pressurize the unit and use a "leak detector" to determine exactly where the leak is occurring.  It used to be about every 3 months we'd have the issue, now it's every 2 weeks.  I hope that you can locate the leak in order to replace the correct part.

Carry On,

-C_S

[Sean]

I remember the warm hospitality you extended to me not long ago with the offer to stay at your home if my wife and I were to be in FL.  I now pray for cooler temperatures within your house.    I also pray that you would be able to have a good short term solution while you save up for the possible long term need of new or replacement parts/appliance.

[TheJaylor]

Yeah, it's even sorta hot here in Minnesota (can you believe it?) in our un-A/C'd house so I'll definitely pray for your situation and that a third door that is cheaper and quicker would open up.

[COUNTER_SNIPER]

In case it wasn't clear, we spent $6,000 and NOW we're having our system pressurized to find the leak that was supposedly fixed.  I'd recommend doing that before, not after lol. We're learning the hard way haha.

Carry On,

-C_S

[The M]

Praying that the "other option" would be that you find that suddenly nothing is wrong with the A/C!

[YourMathTeacher]

As an update, the freon fill did not even last one day. The air stopped coming out cold within six hours. It is 90 degrees in the house, and that's with windows open and all ceiling fans on high.

My mother is going to go to her bank tomorrow to check into Home Equity. If she has any available, she said that she could loan us the money.

Sniper, we will probably replace the whole unit, inside and out, to avoid future problems that partial replacements may cause. A new system would have a 10-year warranty and be 40% more energy efficient thanks to current technology and laws.

[COUNTER_SNIPER]

As an update, the freon fill did not even last one day. The air stopped coming out cold within six hours. It is 90 degrees in the house, and that's with windows open and all ceiling fans on high.

My mother is going to go to her bank tomorrow to check into Home Equity. If she has any available, she said that she could loan us the money.

Sniper, we will probably replace the whole unit, inside and out, to avoid future problems that partial replacements may cause. A new system would have a 10-year warranty and be 40% more energy efficient thanks to current technology and laws.

That's the thing... We replaced the whole unit inside and out and it STILL leaks somewhere, somehow.  We also have a 5-10 year warranty on the Unit, BUT, that doesn't cover the guys servicing it; only the parts.  Well, every time they "replace" the "problem" parts, the labor fees are killing us because they aren't solving the problem.  The only way you are going to know for sure why your freon is escaping is if they do a leak test.  We are going to have that done to ours in hopes of locating the issue.  It's a doozy my good man!  I'll agree that it may be time to replace the whole thing, but as in our case, there still may be an underlying issue with the freon that may not be contained within the unit or pipeline itself; so I'd recommend you have a leak test done if the problem persists after the new unit is installed.  We had our new unit for a year before the same thing started happening, so now we're trying to get down to the bottom of it.  I'll continue to pray that the Lord solves the problem for you at the least cost to you (Hopefully for free!). 

Carry On,

-C_S

[YourMathTeacher]

The bank laughed at me when I asked about a loan. As of now I am waiting to hear back from my mother. It is 92 degrees inside the house right now. We have the windows open, but the houses in my neighborhood are so close together that we get no cross wind. We spent a few hours at Target just to cool off the baby.

I apologize to Florida State players that my A/C will likely not be fixed by this weekend. I am going to look into alternate venues this week. Please pray that God provides one of His usual miracles. This is the last week of school and my students have Final Exams. This is an added stress that I really did not need.   

[Rawrlolsauce!]

If nothing else works out, a window air conditioner is ~$100. It isn't the most elegant and won't work as well as central air, but it does cool off the room you put it in quite a bit.

I hope you can get it fixed though.

[YourMathTeacher]

If nothing else works out, a window air conditioner is ~$100. It isn't the most elegant and won't work as well as central air, but it does cool off the room you put it in quite a bit.

Unfortunately, the design of the house only supports the central air unit. The main rooms - living room, dining room, kitchen - are all connected and open air, with cathedral ceilings. In all of that, there is only one window (in the kitchen) that has an opening too small for a window A/C unit. The main "windows" in that area are the sliding glass doors that go out to the pool.

Thank you for your suggestions and support.

[Sean]

How is the AC looking now that it has been a couple days?

[YourMathTeacher]

How is the AC looking now that it has been a couple days?

I had an update on the Florida State Tournament thread. We still have no A/C. Both inside and outside units are installed, but they can not pull out all the pipes and wires until Saturday morning. If replacing the pipes takes care of the leak, we could have A/C by tonight. If there is still a leak after replacing the pipes, then that would mean that the new units are defective. In that case, there would be no A/C in the near future.