Air Conditioning - Window unit freezing

I don't really know much about a/c units, so I hope it all makes sense. :o

I have a window unit combo (cool and heat) that has started freezing up in the past couple of weeks. After it's turned on, ice will start to form on the evaporator coil (I'm assuming that's the one located in the front of the unit) after about 20 minutes. If I set it to 'fan only' then the ice will clear up about 5 minutes later and it will run fine, for another 20 minutes.

One thing that i've noticed is that once it starts cooling, it continues to blow cold air no matter what the thermostat control is set to, even at its warmest setting. No matter what setting it is on, it runs full blast until it freezes completely.

A list of things I've tried so far:
1. Cleaned the filter.
2. Checked for bent coil fins (evaporator and condenser).
3. Cleaned dust from evaporator coil.
4. Cleaned condenser coil - (was very dirty, but didn't seem to help)

The unit is a 2 year old Whirlpool, if it matters.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

clean the indoor coil with a coil cleaning spray. if this does not help, probably low on refrigerant

Thanks for the reply. I cleaned the indoor coil and it still didn't help, so I called the 'A/C guy' and had him take a look.

He told me that it was low on freon and was leaking from the compressor. Since the compressor was still under the extended warranty, it seems I won't even have to pay a penny.

Just when I thought everything was fine. :(

Technically this would be a heating question, but since it's part of the same unit I thought I would continue this post.

Since the temperature finally decided to drop, I attempted to use the heat this morning to find that it doesn't seem to be blowing hot air. I mentioned in my previous post that the A/C wouldn't cycle off, no matter what the temp was. Now that the heat won't come on, does this sounds like a thermostat problem?

My line of thinking is that if the thermostat is busted, then the A/C would never know that it was cool enough to turn off, and the heater would never know that it was cool enough to turn on.

And if it helps any, the unit is a whirlpool ACE184XL0.

You dont say is it a heat pump or not here. If so Id take it back to the guy that worked on it. You said leaking from the compressor. Did he put a new one in???? or just gas it.
You can have a lot of things out on the unit. the tstat for one . Will the compressor run? The 4 way valve work?

ED ;)

Thx for the reply Ed.

When the A/C was repaired, he detected a leak in the compressor and replaced it.

The A/C part works fine. It blows very cold, doesn't freeze up at all. The reason I was asking about the tstat in particular is because it has a 'power save' option that doesn't seem to work. When the A/C was on, it would blow full blast no matter what it was set to (-7 to +7) until you got up and turned to 'off'.

I don't think it has a heat pump. I found a diagram of it online, and it shows a part labeled 'heater' behind the front shroud. It looks like a heating element like you would find in an electric stove, only with springs wrapped around it. It's located behind the evaporator coil.


Not sure about the 4 way valve, frankly because I don't know what it is. :confused:

Forget the 4 way there you dont have it. that spring like is the electric heat there then. If it dont come on then its back to the tstat or there is a wire off. Id take it back to him. He was to fix it I think you said.


ED ;)