Consumption and Real Estate
Brand new house (split level) and AC is not working properly?
Question : Brand new house (split level) and AC is not working properly?
My husband (who is gone for training “Army” until the end of the month) and I just bought a new construction home and I literally moved in 4 days ago and the AC has slowly began to become less cool and never stop running. At first I thought it was because it’s a split level home and the basement level is half underground. There is a 2nd living room, full bath, guest room, and laundry room down there.. I closed all the vents down there thinking that would help.. still seemed warm upstairs so I bought a new filter cause the one it came with looked cheap. Then I figured it was probably cause we had no blinds on the windows so I spent the entire night last night hanging blinds and today the air was the worst! It started out being 76 degrees (which is what I had it set on) and eventually kept rising to 84 degrees and never shut off.. It wasn’t an extrememly hot day. It probably got to 89-90 degrees outside… I have a 19 month old son who is soooo uncomfortable and can’t sleep well tonight. I ended up turning off the a/c completely to let it rest and open up all the windows since it’s basically 84 degrees out right now anyway. I’ve got my son laying on my bed with the fan on high cause it seems to be much cooler in my room then anywhere else.. I just feel so bad. Anyways, I plan to call the A/c guy in the morning since it’s covered under warranty but I’m just curious to see if anyone knows what the problem might be.. I’m so frustrated with this. My husband has been gone this whole month and I’ve been left to close, sign for the house, move everything myself, and be a fulltime mom. I’m so done.. new house, broken ac.. what’s the deal?
Dsparks ~ Thank you.. I’ll tell him 
Thank you so much for the comments everyone.. you’ve all been very helpful. Sam, I did not know that.. I thought I was doing a good thing by closing the vents down there but I’ll try opening them back up right now. I turned the whole unit off from 8-11 and just turned it back on in hopes to wake up to a cooler home.. still plan on calling the ac guy though. The unit is running fine outside and the filter size is 20X30. I apprieciate all your comments.. obviously I don’t know anything about a/c so thank you.
ADDED*** problem resolved.. A/c guy showed up this morning and unit was frozen + freon leak.
new construction home warranty
Best answer:
Answer by dsparks891
I fully understand.It is more than likely a low charged on the unit.When it was installed they might not have put the correct amount of freon in the unit or the system has a leak that caused the unit to lose its charge.Don’t worry it can be fixed.I would call first thing am and demand someone to repair before it really gets hot..Good luck and tell your husband I thank him for his service to this great nation..Good Luck and God Bless
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#2 written by bow2hook 1 year ago
From the way you describe the situation your new air conditioner has a leak somewhere. The service man will need to fix and recharge the unit with freon. I would leave the fan on manually to keep the air circulating with the windows open.Also have you thought of getting a motel room for the night. If the unit outside is not running the main a/c breaker may need reset.Hope this helps.
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#3 written by Dan B 1 year ago
New construction home? I would contact the builder and have him get a hold of the AC contractor to fix the problem. Or he may give you the number of the contractor and you contact them to get it fixed.
It’s not a plugged air filter. It’s not window blinds. It’s a problem with the AC unit itself. Without looking and taking readings and measurements, it would be impossible to tell from here.
Are you getting air flow out the ventilation registers? No? Then the evaporator fan isn’t running.
What is the air temperature coming out the registers? Should be about 15-20 deg cooler than the air going into the return air register.There’s probably a host of other causes that only an on-site technician can identify and fix.
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There are many possiblities on what might be wrong,but one thing is for sure when you close that many vents on a system you are choking the airflow to a point the unit cannot move enough air and it will freeze up causing it to do almost nothing in the way of cooling. Open those vents one or two is the most I would close.Also if the return air grill is not big enough putting a more restrictive filter is choking it, your filter should be at least 20×25 for a pleated filter.