A/C units fail most often when it is the hottest time of the year. There's a reason for this, beyond Murphy's Law. Hotter it gets, harder an A/C compressor must "work", pumping into higher pressure as temperature rises, and user demands cooler air. If that compressor gives out, it's usually a serious failure requiring replacement. Unfortunately, these things have the drive motor sealed inside of them, so if the motor fails electrically, a burn-out, all that bad stuff gets pushed into the plumbing. These are known as "Hermetic Compressors", and are identical to the ones in our refrigerators, but much larger. A mechanical failure presents a less involved repair, generally, but still quite involved. Typical home A/C unit has 3 electric motors in it: the compressor, one that pushes the air around in the house (the evaporator motor), and one that pushes outside air over coils to cool the Freon refrigerant (the condenser motor). Of the 3, I have most often seen the condenser motor burned out. It works under severe duty, very hot, especially in Desert service, where air temperatures are higher than elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere by a large amount. Midwest, 100 degrees, Desert 120 degrees. Occasionally a "luck-out" failure saves a homeowner a big repair bill: a controls failure, thermostat, or relay, easy and quick fix.
We minimize the use of our central A/C system by setting our thermostat to start the system only when the temperature hits 82 degrees indoors. Because of the High Desert's very low humidity, the household temperature at 82 degrees is not uncomfortable to us at all, but visitors from "down the hill" cannot stand it that warm, so we have to "baby" them by setting the temp. to 76 degrees. You're either a "desert dweller" or you're not! HiDesertHal
A few years ago, my wife's uncle died in Phoenix. She was the executor of his estate since he had no children and his wife had preceded him in death. He was found wandering outside in his PJs in the middle of the night. He collapsed and was taken to the hospital but died. He was, I believe, 82 when he passed. My spouse flew down there to see what had to be done since his estate was in a living trust which is not used much here. It was July, and the outside temp when she arrived was 116 F. Inside the home it was much warmer than outside, or at least felt that way. She tried to start the AC, but it did not respond. She called an air conditioning place, and they came out and gave her an estimate of $2800 to repair the AC unit. Not wanting to spend that much money right off the bat, she stripped to her swimsuit and took cool showers about every 30-40 minutes to keep from overheating while she went through the papers and such. She finished what had to be done, and returned to Alaska while everything in AZ went though processing. We returned as a family in late September, when the temperatures were much more tolerable. It was still warm (I don't recall the temp) but not uncomfortable inside or out. We were preparing the home for sale and decided to look into repairing the AC prior to sale. We were pondering the question when one of the neighbor men came over to see what we were doing. We told him about the AC, and he said he would look at it. He found a wire that passed over the fan in the top of the unit that had worked loose from a connector, fallen into the fan blade and been sliced. He spliced the wire and the unit came on when power was restored. The belief was that the uncle had had the same experience, perhaps called the same repair company. When he got the estimate, he couldn't afford to spend that much money at the time and postponed the repair. He then suffered from heat stroke/ hyperthermia during the night, became disoriented and died. I just checked with my wife. She says the old gentleman was 92, not 82 years of age. He lived alone--still pretty good!
@Don Alaska The best we can hope for, is to die in our sleep. I know of two who were thus fortunate. I cannot imagine waiting to die while accumulating bed sores! Frank
There were times when I lived in S. Arizona and S. Nevada when I made a very nice side living repairing residential swamp coolers. Fan motor, water pump, shut off float, pads and spiders was all I really had to worry about. One trailer park owner hired me to spring clean 40 of them and at 20 beans a pop. Cheap for him and a nice chunk of change for me doing spare time work. At the time, most people could run a swamp cooler all day long and practically freeze people out of the abode for only about $15 a month compared to a much higher usage dollar for chemically based A/C.
@Bobby Cole Interesting story! The quality and craftsmanship of critical parts was far better back inthe '80s, when we lived in Phoenix. Lately, my float valves, though still bronze, fail to seal properly after only a few months use. When the cooler is shut off, they continue to dribble until the tray overflows. While running, evaporation rate exceeds the dribble rate, so no leakage is apparent! The very best Evap. Cooler we've had was made of Stainless Steel. Those seem rare where we are today. Frank
There might be a small problem Patsy. The average humidity of London hangs around 70% which pretty makes a swamp cooler useless. The lower the humidity, the more effective the cooler is. With the exception of the monsoon season, Southern Arizona and Nevada rarely get above 20% and even that is a tad high. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but think on the bright side: Winter is just around the corner!
We only once had a problem with our AC in our home in Southern Spain.. I couldn't tell you what was wrong with it because I'm not techy, but the repair guys out there are really cheap.. and they generally do a really good job and don't take long about it ( unlike here)... I got the repair guy in, he had to do quite a lot to the units, I remember that, and was there about 3 hours.. cost me 50 euros..
Once upon a time in a small north Texas town, out toward Faith Village at a local address at 2106 Grant Street, I lived in duplex. Two bed rooms, one bath, large kitchen and living room. We had an evaporative cooler (also known as a swamp box). I worked for a class A electrical utility known as TEXAS Electric Service Company, headquartered in Ft Worth, and ranging out west as far as Midland and Odessa in 1955. One morning as I was about to leave for work my roommate causally said to me, We have some static electricity in the air conditioner; it shocks me when I turn it on or off. The next day being Saturday, I go in to check the A/C. I turned it off, then back on. Each time I got a good tingle. I checked the electrical cable which seemed to bein good shape. Now it's fair to say I run about the house on weekends barefooted. I grabbed my toolbox and went outside. There was a water leak and underneath the swamp box water stood ankle deep. Being barefoot the water didn't matter and it seemed I ought to repair the water leak first. I took off the sides so I could get a bird's eye view of everything. Grabbing the pliers I commenced unscrewing the copper water line from the A/C. Not sure of the chain of events which followed. I was shocked, not by a bit of static electricity but by a jolt that sent mess foot backwards in the a chain link fence devidinging the properties. My left foot was hurting like blazes and in my eyes I could still see the spark sent out by the 120 volt charge I got standing in the water. It felt more like a 440 volt shock. My fingers where i had been holding the pliers were bright red and sore. I kpicked myself up, looked around to see if anybody had witnessed the incident, grateful it appeared they hadn't, went back in the house and unplugged the A/C which should have been the first thing I did. I didn't repair the old box. Instead I went shopping, I think to Sears and bought a new 4500 unit. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone at Texas Electric about this incident.
@Bill Boggs You could easily have been killed! Such stories frighten me to the core, as I have spent a lifetime working with electricity, occasionally being less careful than I should have been. Got my share of shocks, not serious ones though, as when I worked with potentially lethal voltages or equipment, I used extra caution. Over the years I encountered many conditions which were unexpected, yet potentially dangerous. For example: The black plastic coating often develops tiny cracks, almost invisible, especially around the ends of the handles. I once got a shock using my pliers, and figured out that sweaty palms allowed moisture to get in through the cracks, then conduct current from the metal pliers back through the moisture, into my hand, resulting in current flow into my body. I carefully inspected the dozens of pliers I had, throwing away any showing such deterioration. Today's electrical codes demand that devices like evap coolers be supplied electric power by ground-fault detecting power sources, commonly called GFI or GFCI circuit breakers, Ground Fault Interruptor or Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor. Such circuit breakers constantly monitor the equality of current level entering and leaving a piece of equipment. A slight difference between current entering and leaving can only mean it is flowing "to ground", possibly through a human being. These breakers "open" the circuit at a current level of 0.005 ampere, five-thousandths, within one and one-half cycles, or 1/60 of a second. My own power panels are loaded with GFIs! Frank
At the ftime of this incident I was an accounting clerk with Tesco. Later, after being transferred to engineering as a draftsman, I worked on line with crews installing ne power installations, grunting at first, but went on to get a third class linesman's rating. Later, I was going to take second class testing but backed out after a first class lineman and troubleshooter responsible for my second class training was killed in an online incident. I felt I was too impulsive and sometime did things with out being sure of myself. I was knocked off a twenty foot ladder once while wiring up a small airport's radio equipment with 440volt. Impulsive carelessness.
@Bill Boggs Bill, I worked with a guy who BRAGGED about how many times he had been "hit" by 440! When I taught classes in electrical safety for Sears Roebuck (I was a tech covering District 252, AZ, NM, part of TX), I always told them I had never been "hit" by 440, because I expected it would surely only happen that one time. Thing is, about electricity, it's not like other dangers around us. We can SMELL something wrong when a leak occurs, SEE impending danger in front of us, HEAR something dangerous approaching us, but electricity, no sense of it's presence until too late, or an instrument, meter, warns us. Frank