We get a lot of calls from customers who see ice on their air conditioning units. Sometimes you can look down into the compressor in the outdoor unit and find that it’s encased in ice!
Where it Starts
The ice starts inside and migrates out, but many times customers don’t notice that there is a problem until they see ice on the outside.
Most people think that ice ups are due to low freon. This is not the case! The number one reason your unit will ice up is poor air flow across the evaporator.
The Cause
The evaporator is the part that gets cold in your indoor unit. Your furnace pushes air over the evaporator and cools the house. If there’s not a high enough velocity of air going across the evaporator, the temperature will drop too far below 32 degrees and cause the unit to ice up.
Another Cause
This lack of airflow can be caused by a dirty filter or a broken blower motor. Or, it can be due to the breakdown of insulation panels in your furnace. Most furnaces have panels of insulation that are glued to the inside. Over time, this glue disintegrates and these insulation panels can get sucked into the blower. This will greatly reduce blower air speed and cause the unit to freeze up.
You May Not Need a New System
In fact, we just did a service call at a company. They said that they needed us to replace their system because it kept freezing up. It turns out that it kept freezing up because the insulation panels had been sucked into the blower! I pulled those out, told them to wait for or five hours for the unit to defrost, and then turn it back on. They called the next day to tell me that everything was working fine. We saved them $10,000!
Your Next Step
Have you noticed any ice on your indoor or outdoor units? Has your AC unit been freezing up? Give us a call at (972) 423-1279 and we’ll help you figure out why it’s happening and what we can do to fix it.