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More A/C saga

[runs on Monday 11/5, Thursday 11/28, Saturday 11/30, Monday 12/2, today: all 3.2 miles]

So the great mystery of the A/C cutouts has been solved.

In the past I have used the cheapest 5 kbtu and 8kbtu AC units they sold at Lowes. But this summer I purchased a much more expensive unit which is supposed to be more energy efficient.

Then, as you may recall, I had problems with the first one. It just one day decided to stop cooling. So I got a replacement. And that one also stops cooling…. when the ambient outdoor air is below about 55 degrees.

The more expensive units stop cooling when the outdoor air is too cold.

Google says this is because it is hard on the unit to run in the cold. I don’t think so. Or maybe I just don’t care. I think the last cheapie unit, the one I just replaced, ran 24×7, year around, for approximately 3 years. We could search this blog and figure it out, but I think it was something like that. And it still cools fine, but there is a bearing in the fan motor that is making an unhappy racket.

Unfortunately for me, if the outdoor air stays around 50-55, the unit doesn’t run but the heat accumulation in the insulated shed runs the temperature up faster than the heat loss to the outdoors. So my equipment gets cooked.

Recently we’ve been having outdoor temps in the 20-60 range. At night the temperature stays low enough. During the day I have been leaving the door open so it gets airflow. That is not my favorite solution!

I think I will investigate the old “broken” unit to see if I can disable the ambient air temp sensor.

A normal warm day where the mid-day temp keeps the AC working
Mid-day the AC ran but otherwise it was too cool outdoors. fortunately cool enough so that leakage kept the heat from building up.
Night was cold and during the day the door was open.

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