Central Florida- home air conditioning question

[Sharon37127]

We are beginning our second summer in our rental home. It is 89 degrees (real feel of 95 degrees), 54% humidity, and almost 6:00 at night. My thermostat is set on 75 degrees, currently running, and says it is 79/80 degrees right now. What is wrong?

 

9 months ago, the A/C just stopped working and the landlord had an A/C guy come and fix it. He replaced the entire unit that sits outside. I don't know anything about A/C units down here in FL, but in TN- all we had was an outside unit. There is some kind of "air handler" in the attic, but this was not replaced. She also had really good insulation blown into the attic.

 

So, why is it so warm in here? When it was cooler and low humidity months ago, I would set it at 75 and would actually BE 75 in the house. Now, we are paying more in utilities to be warmer.

 

What could be wrong if the unit is brand new? any ideas?

[Ellie]

I dunno, but sounds as if it's time to call the landlord again.

[ktgrok]

first change the filter. Second, call the landlord.

[athena1277]

first change the filter. Second, call the landlord.

 

:iagree:i grew up in S LA. If the A/C isn't cooling to the temp it's set to, something is wrong. Until it's fixed it's gonna run almost constantly in that heat, so don't wait to call as your electric bill will go up a lot.

[JFSinIL]

Our thermostat thingie is right over a vent :-( that I have to keep blocked or the thermostat thinks the whole house is cool when we are DYING elsewhere. I also have a hair dryer nearby and will blow hot air at the blasted thing to make it think "oh, hot house" (I see the reading go up several degrees while I blast it). Then it clicks on to run the air for a bit.

 

Same problem in winter - thermostat thinks the house is toasty when only the room it is in (dining room, right outside the kitchen, and as I said, over a vent) is warm.

[serene]

We're southwest of Orlando.

 

Ours was doing that last month, it was frozen up (the air handler in the attic). Our service guy came and defrosted it by turning the heat on for about 30 minutes, then turned the a/c back on. The difference has been night & day - it's working great now.:001_smile:

[Brenda in FL]

There could be several things to check. We always had that problem in SFL and I'm hoping that now our tenants are a bit more comfortable than we were.

 

If the unit is new - then definitely have it looked at again. Making sure the filter is replaced or cleaned every few weeks is very necessary. Are you having frequent brown outs? When our electricity would blink off, the thermostat would go all wonky. I'd have to turn it off for about 15 minutes and then turn it back on. There should be some sort of breaker thing to make sure your compressor turns off and stays off for a certain amount of time when the power fluctuates on/off.

 

We added a solar powered vent fan to our attic tohelp release all that hot air that builds up in the crawl space during the day.

 

Our tenants have not complained since we made several of these changes. I wish we had done it sooner. We had AC guys come and say that it was just too hot for the AC to keep up in the summer . . . yeah right :glare:

[melissad2]

Most likely its low on freon which means it has a leak somewhere. Apparently no one anywhere is capable of making an ac unit that does not leak! They need to come out and put freon in and do a leak test to find the leak. I would bet the air handler needs to be replaced we had ours replaced this year as well.

[twinmami01]

We're in Central Florida and we set ours at 78 and in all honesty, I swear its colder than that in the house. I would surely call the landlord if it's too hot.