AboutJim Barnhart Expertise Fifty plus years working with Heating, Air Conditioning, Ventilation, Sheet Metal,Hot Water Heating.
Anything that conditions the inside air that we live in, Be it Heating, Cooling, Exhausting or Ventilating.
Limited- refrigeration, Current pricing, Steam Heat.
Experience Answer questions about , residential and commercial.
Answer questions about sheet metal fabrication.
Fifty years plus experience.
No answers for oil equipment, No answers for kitchen appliances, No answers for laundry appliances.
Expert: Jim Barnhart Date: 6/10/2005 Subject: Air Conditioner Pipe freezing
Question Hello,
Recently, my air conditioner has not been blowing cold air (couple of days ago). I just realized that my filter was very dirty. I have changed this (temporarily just removed it). I noticed that there are two pipes coming from the air conditioner outside, one small and one thick (thick one with foam around it). The thin pipe gets ice on it around a joint just before it enters an entrance point on the furnace (this is inside the house).
I was told from a guy at work to shut the air conditioner off and let it thaw as perhaps there was not enough air flow to get rid of the cold air and thus it froze.
Any other ideas? What are these two pipes?
Thanks,
Jim
Answer Jim,
The lines are the liquid and suction lines that circulate the refrigerant from the outside condensing unit in and through the coil, Under normal operating conditions the larger line should be cold and the smaller line should be warm.
If the insulation wasn't on the larger line it would frost over and condensate.
A dirty filter can cause the coil inside your AC unit to freeze and ice build up at the connections at the unit.
You need to keep the filter clean and if the coil dose freeze from a dirty filter you need to just run the blower fan with the AC off for as long as it takes to thaw the coil completely.
There can get a large mass of ice build up inside that could take several hours to thaw,
