Central Air broke...burning smell in all vents!

[wooisme]

when it rains it most certainly pours which i wish it would because it would certainly be cooler.

My central air went today. scared the you know what out of me, smelled burning in all my vents, quickly shut off air, anyway it doesn't work now.

I hope i don't need a new one cause they are expensive. I'm allowed to acquire up to $5,000 in debt without going to the judge. anything over $5,000 i have to ask permission.

does anyone know of anyone that would lend someone money to get a new air conditioner who is in a chapter 13. I have no idea what to do and contacting my lawyer is a waste. he never answers me at all. if i call and leave messages about things he never calls back, he does not answer emails.

any suggestions and yes i'm confirmed a year ago

[BigJohn]

Sounds like it might be a compressor belt. Do you have somebody who can look at it?

How old is it? When was the last time it was serviced?

[wooisme]

it's 14 years old and no we don't know anyone. it was serviced last year or the year after that. about 7 years ago we had the coils replaced in it because there was a leak in it. i can tell you it scared me to death

[ssdsco]

Normally the central AC units are outside. Depending on your heat/AC setup it sounds like the blower/fan motor that sends the heat and AC throughout the house.

Again depending on your setup try setting the AC/heat to off and the fan to on(not auto). If the fan doesn't come on it's probably fan related and not AC.

[BKOnce]

Happened to me before. It's the blower/fan motor in the AC unit defective, the heat/rotor friction in its rotating shaft (metal expanding by heat) & causes that burning smells that's all (motor life is short around ~10-15 years). I heard lots of vibrating fan noises too. It will get worst then stuck stops after a while. I just opened it up, read the serial number/model, Google up model, found manufacturer/selling sites, register site, then ordered/paid one online (because manufacturer will NOT sell to home owners local) then replaced them (assuming you know reading electric schematics well), save big buck$$!!... Yes I did.

Note: Central air unit has two fans. The one outside house is for cooling the compressor motor only, and the one inside house (basement/attic) is for "blowing" either cool or hot air throughout your house. During summer, both fans run. In winter, only inside fan runs, outside fan does not run because no cooling needed.

[wooisme]

The fan Does work because I didn't realize i had the fan set to auto and i couldn't understand why i was smelling this faint burning after i turned off the system and then i realized it was the fan and shut it off. so it's not the fan.

The repair person is coming today. I got $1200 stimulis check and i had to spend some of it on a dryer and now i only have $1000 left

[Peevee]

My central unit played out after I filed chapter 13. I called everyone in the yellow pages finally one guy showed up the rest were booked up for weeks. He ended up replacing my compressor and he billed me for it. I got a bill a couple weeks later and I paid what I could and finally got it paid off. There is still a few companies that will bill for services.
I hope you get it fixed. It's no fun doing without ac

[ssdsco]

Happened to me before. It's the blower/fan motor in the AC unit defective, the heat/rotor friction in its rotating shaft (metal expanding by heat) & causes that burning smells that's all (motor life is short around ~10-15 years). I heard lots of vibrating fan noises too. It will get worst then stuck stops after a while. I just opened it up, read the serial number/model, Google up model, found manufacturer/selling sites, register site, then ordered/paid one online (because manufacturer will NOT sell to home owners local) then replaced them (assuming you know reading electric schematics well), save big buck$$!!... Yes I did.

Note: Central air unit has two fans. The one outside house is for cooling the compressor motor only, and the one inside house (basement/attic) is for "blowing" either cool or hot air throughout your house. During summer, both fans run. In winter, only inside fan runs, outside fan does not run because no cooling needed.

How does a blown fan outside cause a burning odor inside ?


wooisme, Please let us know how you make out......thanks

[BKOnce]

No, I only had my inside fan broken during winter and the buring smell of electric motor during heating phase (winter), not the one (compressor fan) outside. But if the outside fan is broken (during cooling), you simply don't have any cool/cold air running only fan blowing (summer).

[Poppie]

I had the same problem once. Noticed a bad burning smell all through the house and realized it was the air conditioner. In my case, it was a control panel that shorted out. I think it was about a $200 or so repair. Hopefully that's all you are facing!

[wooisme]

no it's worse than that.

the guy just let, I burned out my cicuit board AND tranformer, ready? $800!

[ssdsco]

If it's not to late I'd get a couple estimates. That's seems very high. You can google the cost of the parts.

There was a lady in the forum who had AC problems last year and I think she reached back a couple of boyfriends ago to get help. Saved a lot of money.

[wooisme]

I understand but I do not have anyone to do this for me, I am not capable of doing this myself nor do I wish to. I don't know a soul who does this kind of work at all.

[BK2008]

Check out your local donut shop (I'm not kidding).

Alot of them have a bulletin board with business cards of local repair people that do what you're looking for.

I've collected many numbers that way.

[wooisme]

what i can't understand is how this happened and what caused all of this to happen