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Where is he** is the air going?????

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Posted: Sun May 2nd, 2010 01:06 pm

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ckwemartin
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Joined:	Sun May 2nd, 2010
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My wife asked me to look at our ac system today because the condenser unit was running pretty loudly. It's been running loud since the start of the cooling season, but the seems to turn fine and it's pushing cold refrigerant.

But while looking at it, I noticed that I could hear the air handler fan running, but couldn't find air coming out of any of the supply registers.

The air handler is in the attic so I went in there and the fan is running but only barely leaking out any of the vents in the house. Unless our house defies the laws of physics, something weird with the system is going on.

We have a 3-zone Carrier system (vintage 2004) with an automatic baffle in each of 3 main supply ducts. When I first looked at the control board lights, all 3 LED's that indicate that the baffles are open were all lit.

I looked at the part of the baffles that sit outside the vent and they each have what looks like a graduated "range" of where the baffle can be positioned...with kind of like ruler tick marks that span across an arc of maybe 40 degrees...and it looks like the baffle can be anywhere in that range.

All 3 baffles appeared to be pegged to the far right end of that range. I didn't want to mess them up so I didn't try to actuate them manually, but that's the only thing that made sense why the fan's running but can't feel return or supply air anywhere.

I turned both the air handler and condenser power off for a minute hoping the old reboot trick would work (maybe that only works in my mind). No luck. I did see at one point that the baffle LEDs changed to showing only one open, but with the fan running, you could still feel pretty much no air moving inside the house.

I should note that the refrigerant line in the attic was plenty cold (condenser & compressor working...at least a little). Also I could feel a few small air leaks at the air handler, which doesn't surprise me if all of the baffles are closed, that air is trying to go somewhere. I could even feel it coming out of the airbox leak hole pretty hard.

Can I safely actuate the baffles manually to at least confirm this suspicion? If I'm right, it seems that a control board issue is likely? Would there be any reason to suspect the loud condenser unit to be related to this at all?

Thanks in advance.

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Posted: Sun May 30th, 2010 04:36 am

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jb8103
Senior Apprentice Appliantologist

Joined:	Sun Apr 17th, 2005
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Realizing there isn't much chance after a month, but I'm curious about this. Are you still out there, ckwemartin?

(There is a bypass, btw, in a forced-air zone system, so if the dampers are all closed, your air is just going roundy-round, but I don't think that's your problem.)

Last edited on Sun May 30th, 2010 04:38 am by jb8103

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