Air Conditioning - Weird Problem: Intermittent Compressor

Okay, hopefully someone has dealt with this issue before. AC has been running fine. Yesterday, I thought the AC was on, but soon realized that it was just the inside blower. I went out to check the compressor unit and it was off, checked the breaker and it looked to be on. Just to make sure, I tripped it off and on, and the compressor unit immediately started to run. Same thing happened later in the day, same result. I was starting to think I had a bad breaker.

Today, AC ran normally all day. Around 5:00 pm, the same problem occured - inside blower running, compressor unit was not. So, instead of returning to the breaker, I shut everything down from the t-stat and waited a minute or so. Then I turned everything back on at the t-stat. Once I did that everything was running fine - both inside and at the compressor unit. I'm stumped, anyone have any ideas?

Both compressor and fan outside was not runnig till you reset the breaker?

What you have for brand/model???

I have a Heil 5000 unit outside the house.

You are correct, nothing was running outside until I reset the breaker. HOWEVER, it didn't appear that the breaker was tripped (I don't think it was). Moreover, I don't need to go near the breaker to fix the problem. I can just shut the t-stat on and off when this happens and then everything will run fine.

Thanks for any suggestions.

From watching it more closely today, it appears that the compressor is shutting down in the middle of a cycle as opposed to the begining of the cooling cycle. If that helps at all . . .

Is the compressor hot??? is the big copper line wet and cold at the outdoor unit???

ED ;)

So I decided to try and clean out all the coils to see if that helped (they weren't that dirty to begin with, but I hadn't done it yet this year). The compressor is COLD, with some ice on it and the copper lines also feel cold. As to wether they were wet, by the time I saw them, the hose had already made them somewhat wet.

Thoughts?

There was ice on the compressor?? That's not good esspecially if the coils and filter are clean. You may be low on refrigerant if it has ice on it.

If this is a heat pump rather than straight A/C, I think that series had a low pressure switch in it. Once it freezes the pressure drops & opens the low pressure cut out.

PLEASE SEE MY NEW POST AND PROVIDE SOME HELP, if possible.

Thanks!