Air Conditioning - AC Lines Iced over

My A/C seems to work ok most days, but a couple of times now, the outside coils (which are insulated) are covered in ice, and the unit quits working.

Yesterday I noticed the coils were FULL of fuzz and junk, so I blew them out with my compressor. Now they have a TON of suction, but the line iced over.

What causes this? Is there anything wrong that I should have checked out?

Thanks!

-=Rob=-

Well you could have simply blew the gunk deeper into the coils, but since you say that the airflow inproved I guess that is not the case.

If the airflow is good then you are looking at a pro visit to check the freon level. Low freon will cause it to ice over.

You may also consider a leak test. In an ideal world you never have to add freon and it never leaks out.

Like said: But
, the outside coils (which are insulated) are covered in ice, and the unit quits working

I dont get what you mean here

ED;)

Wow, completely missed that. I've never seen coils outside insulated.

Ok, so my terminology isn't the best. Dammit Jim, I'm a programmer, not an HVAC technician! :wall:

The "pipes leading to/from the outside unit" from the compressor outside to my "air circulation unit" inside :P are insulated. Inside of the house, they seem OK, outside of the house, they are all iced over. OVER the insulation.

Any ideas?

NO SWEAT:D
You dont say about the inside unit???? Blower runing ok??? Is the filter clean???? With ice on inside coil cant tell now , but is the coil clean .
If all the above is ok then its back to low freon .There you have to call a tech .

ED;)

You are gonna have to power down the unit and let it completely defrost. That means 3-4 hours...

The blower will not circulate air until you do.

I replaced the filter two days ago. CHECK
Ice SEEMS to only be on the OUTSIDE of the house..?
Turned unit off at 8. It's 90 degrees here, so by noon I'm firing it up! CHECK!
Iced up AFTER I blew out the outside fins. They were all plugged up. Maybe this was the problem and was already icing up before I noticed it, huh?

Well if the outside was iced over you can be pretty assured that the inside was iced over...

So it seems to be "cold air" coming out of the vents, but not a lot of pressure. If the coils inside my "furnace" (Sorry again for the lack of terminology) were full of dust and dirt, I would assume that would cause BOTH of these issues. Can I just blow them off with air as well (From an air compressor, of course.)

Also, the unit is sitting at an angle, I'm going to re-level it. Would that cause this as well?

Thanks everyone for ALL of your help thus far. Sorry for being an idiot about this stuff. Just want to make sure I check all the "easy" stuff before calling in a pro to look at it.

-=Rob=-

So it seems to be "cold air" coming out of the vents, but not a lot of pressure.Maybe because it is iced up.

But, if it is not I would use a good foaming coil cleaner. High pressure air will bend over the fins if not done vary carefully and correctly. Then you will need a fin straightener with the right fins per inch to fix them...

Ok, so I'll check the temp when I get home. It's supposed to be a cool night tonight, so I will leave the blower on, but turn the unit off, just to keep air flowing over it.

I'll look for a foaming coil cleaner. That won't hurt or rust anything, I take it?

I'll also re-level the unit as it's really kittywompas. I wonder if someone backed into it or something. Grr...

All sound good?

Thanks all!

-=Rob=-

The coil cleaner can be obtained from one of those warehouse hardware stores... specifically made for A/C coils.


I would only move the condensor around small amounts at a time. The copper tubing is pretty accostomed where it is and you might induce a leak if moved too far at once. (Others may call me crazy for this statement.) But if the solders were good it shouldn't make a difference. You are right...the compressor does need to be close to level at least.