!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
Stick a thermometer in the vent. Should be around 50-60°F coming out. You’re potentially low on refrigerant. Any frost on the coil box (usually above the furnace)?
Unfortunately this is 100% not user fixable. Typically requires specialized tools to diagnose and then fix. You also can’t buy refrigerant without a license.
You also can’t buy refrigerant without a license.
That's gotta depend on location...
I've lived in a couple US states, and AutoZone always carried it.
Just checked online and even amazon sells 134a
134a is for automotive ac units. Unless something has changed recently, household hvac systems use a different type. It used to be R22 for both, but that was a long time ago. Turned out freon (R22) was bad for the environment.
Freon is an actual trade name, like Kleenex it wasn't defended rigorously and now it's used for all refrigerants generically. FYI
Didn’t know that. Thanks!
They're pretty much all bad for the environment, just to different degrees. Even the "greener" refrigerant choices (which have suboptimal thermodynamic properties, BTW) are things like ammonia, carbon dioxide and propane.
Point is, don't be cavalier about letting your refrigerant escape even if it isn't R22.
Quick Google search I found a website that let you buy it all you have to do is check a checkbox that says your certified.
Totally. Then once you get it, make sure to huff a bit of it to make sure it's pure
Nonsense. You pour two fingers and slam it then immediately shotgun a beer. It's the only way.
Not legal and definitely not easy to get local without a license. There’s always someone will to sell on the black market. Also, shit is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. I was trying to give the OP sound advice, you know, what they’re asking for.
The fact it's so easy to obtain without a license online is wild. You wouldn't think it would be in the top search results.
You can buy all the toxic chemicals you like, online or at the hardware store
Another possibility is the starting capacitor for the compressor motor is bad.
If the capacitor is bad then the compressor motor won't actually start, but the fan will still turn on. This will make it seem like the AC unit is running, but there won't actually be any cooling going on. The fans will still blow air, and it'll feel slightly cooler because it's moving air, but it won't actually be cooler.
Replacing capacitors is pretty easy and not too expensive. However, it can be extremely dangerous so I recommend you leave it to the professionals unless you have some experience working with electricity.
This was my recent problem in Texas. Was also throwing the breaker on the reg.
That is what should happen when a starting capacitor fails, but it doesn't always happen as it's supposed to.
Is the coil outside unusually hot or is the fan outside not running well? It should be moving a lot of air, not like a jet but not like a warm fart either. If that's the only problem then you're in luck.
You said there's cool air from the vents but less than you expect.. less cool or less air? If the blower motor isn't working right that's a fix you can do, you'd just need a new one of the same motor that is in there now. Then it's just a few bolts and screws, maybe a few wire nuts.
Is there icing up anywhere? Particularly at the coil inside the furnace. You may need to turn off the power and open an upper panel to get access to see. If that's happening then the other guy is right and you're low on refrigerant. A combustible gas tester is not super pricy but even if you find the leak you won't be able to fix it yourself.
Good luck.
100% low on coolant, which means you have a leak.
If it suddenly got really shitty, then it's a big leak and no way around it.
If it's slowly gotten shittier and shittier, so slow you're just now really worrying about it. Then it's likely a tiny pinhole leak. The environmently right thing to do is still to get the leak repaired, depending on your state laws you may not have a choice.
But for a pinhole you can charge it back up and could be good for years, could be good a week.
Now you're a renter, so if you're in a good state you maybe able to report the suspected leak, and then they have to get it checked?
It's one of those things where any one person has a negligible effect, but if everyone goes one way or the other it's a huge effect, so some states say you can't charge without doing a leak check and then they have to fix it before charging.
Cold but not blowing? Or blowing but not cold?
Some solid advice in here.
I'd also check the coils inside the unit. Look up under the filter you pulled. Coils are probably over that. Get a flashlight and have a look.
If they're coated in gunk, they make spray cleaners that dissolve the whole mess.
Not cold enough, or frozen solid, sounds like nasty coils to me.
You’ve checked everything that can be checked by you. Time to call a pro.
Check your breaker for the ac. If it's off the central blower will turn on but the ac unit (the part outside of the house won't turn on). Go outside and look if the fan out there is spinning.