Broken Whirlpool Window Air Conditioner
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Cleaning a filthy Whirlpool brand window air conditioner, only to find that it had a much more serious problem. Recorded August 2015.
(As this was uploading here in November 2015, it began snowing!)
Some of you might enjoy the peals of thunder in the beginning.
A FEW YEARS AGO,I bought a whirlpool all metal window ac,used a garden hose to wash a huge amount of dirt mold & grime
off,I tipped it to let water drain off,used the shopvac on blow to dry it,left it out to sundry.
it worked real well,clean filtered air super neat, today as the thing was in storage in a dusty basement,repeated the cleaning method,plus wiping each fan blade,plugged it in this time,,,nothing,,is it maybe the capaciitor that crapped out when it got wet?,power from the cord got onto the hot *& ground wire in the unit,but no power to the compressor or fan.
If you understand the risks and know how to safely do so, it's time to get a multimeter and start troubleshooting. Be sure to discharge the capacitor before you ever put the first meter lead or your hands in the unit. I suspect you will find a control has failed, either the main mode switch or the thermostat.
The air conditioner would still try to run with a bad capacitor in place. It would hum loudly and pull a very large amount of electrical current.
thx ux will do
update here uxw,,took apart this old reliable moose,cleaned inside wiped the fan blades,the cap had the frayed brown wire at the connection point,I stripped that wire about an inch & a half,used a few dollops of solder to restore connectivity,I had a multimeter,a radio shack cheapo, like most radio shack stuff,it is a lemon pretty useless,also used fine grit sandpaper to clean contact points sliding off the pin contacts to clean grit off them, the thing is now in the window,and runs perfectly, that one shorted brown wire was the failure reason,
If you can, I'd strongly suggest replacing that brown wire. The repair won't be likely to last. If it is part of the power cord, I'd replace the whole thing.
Out of freon, needs freon gas, likely could be made to run 134a.
There's a company called Redtek, from memory, you don't need a license to use their freon, wouldn't hurt to look into it, I charged my car with it
Whooo way to go Bill! Loving the regular videos! Doesn't matter what they are about I always watch em with great interest!
The compressor could have been damaged internally due to being run without the fan and now it's not building proper head pressure. I had a unit where the compressor failed like that. The thing would run and run but not cool properly.
It's really humid hear during the summer, so we normally scrub ours down with bleach and pressure wash it every 2 years or so. The only problem I've been having with the newer ones is they just seem to go bad after about 4-5 years. I've managed to fix a few with simple repairs but they are a pretty big pain in the butt.
Its a shame :-(, but its 15 years old and worked very hard without propper maintenance.
It would have been fine if you had owned it bill, you would have noticed the slight drop in performance and cleaned it.
I'm surprised the radiators does not have bug screen like farm tractors do for easy cleanup
I have a feeling that back in the day Whirlpool made many more air conditioners under the Kenmore name than they did their own. Older Whirlpool AC's units are rather rare when compared to Kenmore.
That thunder boom at the start of the video was not expected!
Yup, that does look to be low on charge. Usually if there's a leak, there will be a light film of oil at or near the leak site, but not always. It's a shame that they don't have service valves already built in so that you can throw a set of gauges on it and check the pressures, instead of having to add ports yourself. I guess they don't really intend for people to get that involved with it and hope that you'll just purchase a new one. Some of those older units can last for years and years. My folks have one that still works great and it's from 1984!
Florida gets storms in the afternoon during the summer.
Im pretty sure is low on charge it has all the symptoms for that.
Very good video, keep them coming buddy!
Frost on some coils usually denotes overcharging or a clogged expansion valve.
With an air conditioner, you want a 15 to 20 degree split between the ambient air and the output from the air conditioner. This showed 10, so probably a tad low on r22, which is why it was freezing up. If whoever owned this unit is thinking of replacement, I highly recommend that it is replaced with a used/new air conditioner from before 1999. Any air conditioner you buy today except maybe friedrich, is not going to last more than a couple years.
+uxwbill that stinks, they would probably be much happier with an old USA unit. Even the well built units, if not taken care of, can fail, as seen with this unit.
that thing is 2007, chances are it is not R22 as its being phased out. Its probably something more eco friendly. Maybe puron based?
anyway, I bought an 8,000 BTU for I think $200 new and its still kicking. Right now its only used to provide climate control for a small server room/network closet so it runs 24/7 constantly.
did you watch the video all the way? It said 1999 and it's r22 and even in 2007 they still had r22 in 2010 is when they started to phase out r22.
+Logan Musser Everyday (as I'm an HVAC Technician) we still use R-22, but as you said, they are trying to phase out R-22. My price for refrigerant is about $270 for a 30Lb can of R-22, while R-134A is a mere $87 for a 30Lb can. Just giving some info
Whats with the AC in the back of the truck bed?
To clean it! It was quite dirty!
Yep I think it needs a refill and a check on it's internal oil content too. When you said that it's cold in Illinois and that you have to turn the cooling system on, I thought hey I freezing my butt here (here is somewhere in the Middle east). Of course I'm familiar with the Fahrenheit scale, because otherwise 50 degrees Celsius would be the living hell. :-)
I used to like watching T'Storms outside when I like to see Lightning at the sky and I like to film outside right at the window or at the porch, and I used to collect the SFX (Sound Effects) include rain and the thunder to use like my iconic on my YT channel. =)
Wow! You have been just pumping out videos! Keep up the good work!
Seeing as it's only a 5000 BTU unit, it isn't really worth having it serviced. Craigslist, or the equivalent in your area, will most definitely have larger units for sale for much less than the cost of repairing that one.
"Tell you what, folks, welcome to Illinois. If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes".
LOL! Best quote ever. :-)
Too bad it's not R134a. If it were I would possibly consider a low-side saddle valve and a can of refrigerant. But I wouldn't try that on anyone's unit but my own.
Lol, nice guy, but I watched majority of video hoping to get answers on how to fix this old whirlpool window unit, but all I got in end was I don’t know how to fix. Come on ??
Fixing anything has to start with a diagnosis, and *you* have to do that part. At the time this was recorded, I wasn't licensed to handle refrigerant. I could not go any further to troubleshoot it. I theorized that it had a leak, something that I found to be true after I did get my refrigerant handling license.
If you're hoping to find some "cut and dried" information on the Internet that matches the exact symptoms you have, that's a waste of your time and likely won't have the desired result. Do some troubleshooting or take it to someone qualified. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's the honest truth.
Loving the snow? :D We have about 4 Inches in Indiana.
Nice video as always! But I'm just curious where the refrigerant would go if there was excessive pressure. Unless the system has a leak, which it very well could, I don't see how refrigerant is going to escape no matter how much pressure it builds. It's supposed to be a sealed system.
If the pressure got high enough, it could have forced open a marginal welded or soldered joint in the system, or even pushed open a small pinhole elsewhere. Everything has limits on how much pressure it'll stand, and with refrigerant, pressure increases as temperature goes up.
(Look at the "design test pressure" that's oftentimes printed on the data label in a refrigeration system. Prior to R-410A becoming popular, it was usually around 300-350 PSI for most systems.)
I see. You are saying that the high pressure caused something to start leaking. But if the system developed a leak from extreme pressure, wouldn't the refrigerant just leak out again if it was recharged?
It would depend entirely upon the leak. If it only appeared when the pressure was excessively high, it might never happen again.
I later put a service port on this system and tried to find the leak with bubbles and an electronic leak detector. Even after boosting the pressure up with dry nitrogen to very near the test pressure, I couldn't find it. So I recharged it as a class project and sent it back to its owner. They're using it and I have yet to hear a complaint.
Awesome! I'm glad you ended up fixing this unit.
LOL perfect song at the right time...."through the pouring rain" @4:43
Shame a regas makes repairing not worthwhile, a nice unit!!!
sure you put this up and it is snowing here in MN
Low on charge or plugged up cap tube.
It's because the compressor pump is wore out
poor thing never really got a good chance at life. frost is normal at startup as pressures stabilize but after 10 minuets it should be long gone. what ended up happening to this unit?
Its owner kept it in storage for a while, something I didn't find out about until I entered an HVAC/R program. When I did, I asked them if I could work on it, with no guarantee of anything. They said yes, so I did.
The charge was recovered through a bullet valve, after which I added a suction side service port. Then I went looking for leaks with the aid of dry nitrogen, and I never found one. It held pressure reliably for an entire week. So I pulled a vacuum on it, recharged it with R-22 and took it back to its owner, telling them that I had no idea how long it would last, and they could use it for as long as it did.
Dear uxwbill, I recently purchased a new 12,000 BTU window A/C unit an it doesn't have any drain for the water to escape. Do i need to be concerned with this? Also the condenser fan does hit the water throwing it everywhere would this cause a loos in fan efficiency? Thank you very much!
the66volks airconditioners are supposed to spray water around, it cools off the components and it's normal, it actually improves performance
Got 10" of snow in the Wheaton, il area. any snow by you Bill?
under 100 club :D nice video mate
Nothing left to do now except send it down skyhill
Might not wanna let my car around them.....
+chrismaster1 Eh, this one was broken anyway. You could have used it as an appeasement, in case your car was hungry or something...! :-P
How......-. it's still day time where you live
+KolokoGamer I did not know that whirlpool made AC's
***** i never do LOL i willl!!!
yuck. id never put that in my house dude. the amount of mold in that thing has to be toxic as hell.
It was in a garage type setting.
You think you have weird weather? Come down to Houston, Texas
I wish he would, lol
Or it is the compressor on its way out or could be the lack of gas in the instalation as i saw a bad copper line on the evaporator
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