Stopgaps for a broken a/c?
July 4, 2006 8:08 PM   Subscribe

Why is my window air conditioner blowing hot air into my apartment, and can I possibly fix this myself?

I'm moving at the end of the month and not taking my a/c, but I still have one month of hot hot NYC summer to deal with, and the damned thing seems to be broken. I can't justify buying a new one or taking it in to get fixed with only a month left, so I'm hoping there's some sort of simple thing I can try to improve the situation.
Currently, the a/c will blow cold air, but when the compressor switches off the air it starts blowing turns hot. The vent is closed, so it should be just cycling air from the apartment (I believe). The hot air has the effect of undoing all the good the cold air did in the first place.
I should be able (with some effort) to get the chassis out of the casing to take a look, and I'm happy to do any cleaning that is (likely) needed if that will fix the problem. The unit has been in the window since I installed it a year ago. I have cleaned the filter but never removed it from the window to clean anything else. The thermostat seems like it might also be broken; no matter how low I set the temperature it can never get the apartment down below ~82 degrees, but I can't tell if this is actually the thermostat or the hot air problem. Ideas?
posted by ch1x0r to Home & Garden (2 answers total)
 
Best answer: We had the same issue this year with our air conditioner. Turns out that the part of the rear heat exchanger that faces the fan (so, the inside of it) was entirely clogged with dust and cat hair. I scraped it down and now it works again.

You'll have to take the unit out of the chassis to get to the inside of the rear heat-ex, and maybe loosen screws if there's a shroud over the assembly. I dumped water over the crud that was caked on and then scraped it down with a spatula (but not hard, those fins bend easily).
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:18 PM on July 4, 2006


Response by poster: It's lucky that, while I only got one answer, it was the right one. Man, that was a nasty job. Thanks Dipsomaniac!
posted by ch1x0r at 7:24 PM on July 5, 2006


« Older Obesity and oil consumption   |   Is there a place online to find old episodes of... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.