Thursday, June 22, 2006

Some Like It Hot

So anyone have any ideas on why a heat pump would suddenly not be putting out much in the way of cold air? We have two unit multiple floor system, and the unit for the basement is cooling fine, but the upstairs isn't as cool as it used to be. I changed the filter in the system in the attic, and that didn't make a whole lot of difference. I wonder how complicated it is to clean the filter on the actual outdoor unit. Wish I didn't have an early meeting tomorrow so I could check it out. At this point I'm not even sure if this is really a problem with the heat pump or just because of the temperature got up to the 90s today (although even with the high temperature it should have been cooler upstairs, so it's probably the heat pump). Figures it would happen right before we're expecting company. I hear some like it hot, hope our visitors do. Could be worse, could be all floors having the problem and not just the upstairs I guess.

4 comments:

Scott said...

A heat pump is just an AC used for heating as well... it should cool like a banshee. (It's the heating in the winter that's moderate.)

You probably need to make a service call and get the coolant checked. Could be a leak.

Barry said...

How cool are you setting the upstairs for? It's pretty easy to cool a basement, but most residential A/C are designed to hold a 15-20 degree differnential to the exhaust of the unit (the heat being removed). So if its 95 outside, maintaining 75 inside is good.

We have our temp set at 73 and on those hot days by about 4pm it can no longer keep up and the temp rises to about 76 at the thermostat. A/C guys say unit is working fine. Unfortunately, we have a single zone system meaning the upstairs and first floor work off the same thermostat and ducting. So the upstairs usually is about 3 degrees warmer.

JamesF said...

We just got the compressor replaced on it last year (the compressor was still under warranty, so it was 'free', but we had to pay for the labor).

And strangely no one wanted to drop everything and head out here on a Friday to fix it. Looks like it'll be Monday before anyone can come look at it.

rj said...

We forgot to change the filter on one of ours and thoroughly froze the insides of it. I can't remember if we got any air flow at all when it happened though. The other one lost refrigerant and had to be recharged.

We've typically cleaned the outside units by just hosing them down while they're not running.