What The AC Blower Motor Does And How An Air Conditioning Repair Technician Fixes A Bad Motor
Posted on: 25 April 2023
Replacing the blower motor is a fairly common air conditioning repair. The motor can fail for a number of reasons, and when it does, no cool air will blow out of your ducts, and your house will get hot and uncomfortable. Here's how the blower works, what causes the motor to go bad, and what an air conditioning repair technician can do to get the blower working again.
How The AC Blower Works
The blower kicks on when the motor is triggered by the thermostat to start up and turn the fan to blow cool air to the ducts. When the motor starts turning the fan, warm air from your home is pulled into the air handler. It's blown over the evaporator coil that houses refrigerant. The refrigerant pulls heat from the air so the air cools off and blows through the ducts to come out and cool your home.
What Causes The Blower Motor To Go Bad
The blower motor needs a boost of power to start up. It gets the power from a capacitor that stores power for use when needed. If the capacitor isn't working, the draw from the motor could be enough to cause the circuit breaker to trip. The capacitor plays an important role in helping the blower motor work properly.
If the capacitor goes bad, the motor can burn out and go bad too. The blower motor may develop other problems such as bad bearings or broken parts that affect how well the motor can work.
Some signs of a bad blower motor include odd noises coming from the capacitor or motor, low airflow from the ducts, a lack of airflow from the ducts, a hot house, and a high power bill.
How A Blower Motor Problem Is Fixed
First, the air conditioning repair technician figures out why the blower isn't working. It could be that the capacitor has to be replaced so the motor can get power or the motor itself needs to be replaced. Replacing a bad blower capacitor is a fairly easy air conditioning repair since all that's necessary is to pull out the bad capacitor and put in a new one and connect it to the wiring.
A bad blower motor often has to be replaced instead of repaired. The repair technician chooses a motor for the model of your AC. There are two basic types of motors: single-speed and variable-speed. If your equipment is old, you may have a single-speed motor. Newer AC equipment has variable-speed motors that operate more efficiently. Your repair technician may upgrade your motor from single to variable speed when they replace it.
For more info about AC repair, contact a local company.
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