AboutHoward Livingston Expertise Can answer questions on electrical control circuits, power supply,airflow & distribution, electrical components,refrigerant problems,gas, electric & propane furnaces.No boiler or refrigerator or oil fired furnaces experience.Just HVAC questions please.
Experience 35 years experience in residential & light commercial repair & installation.
Question We have a 14 seer Goodman unit that is 13 months old. On Saturday we noticed there was no cold air coming out but the intake fan in the attic was running continually. We checked the electrical panel and the circuit for that unit had tripped. I reset the circuit breaker and the switch on the unit and it began running for about an hour when it tripped again and we could not get the breaker to stay reset. Had professional come out today and said it was either bad circuit breaker or bad compressor. He tightened the wires on the breaker and got the system running and it cooled the downstairs by 4 degrees in about 20 minutes. The system ran for a few hours and then tripped again. The repair guy said if it tripped again it was working too hard and we had to replace the compressor. The unit worked very hard initially while cooling the downstairs and did fine, why would it randomly trip after successfully running through multiple cycles? We wanted to try and get a more clear answer because we are talking about the difference of a $5 circuit breaker or $1000 labor charge for a new compressor (our unit still has part warranty) Any thoughts?
Answer I would start off replacing the circuit breaker. They can fail like everything else. Did the tech tighten the screws on the contactor also ?? If not do that. You could have a sticky compressor & can add a hard start capacitor($75) for the next try after the CB. If it trips after that you do need another compressor. Should be about a $200 labor, NOT $1000 !
