Hello, I would like to see if anyone has seen the same problem with other Rheem units that I have had here.
I have a new house, the Rheem 4-ton RP14 unit was installed in April 2020. Same contractor installed the duct work, airhandler, etc. - did the entire system. Last week, naturally two days before the 4th, the compressor locked up. I has been replaced now, and everything seems to be working.
Here are the details: about four weeks ago, the compressor unit breaker tripped in the middle of the night. I turned the thermostat to off, and reset the breaker, then waited a few minutes and put it back to cool. The unit started and I went back to bed. A couple of weeks later, Sunday 2nd July, it tripped in the afternoon, I found it when I noticed the house getting warm. Same procedure, and it restarted ok. About 1 hour later it tripped again. At this point, I was concerned something may be burned up in the unit, so I took the cover off the control panel and contactor space. There was a dead tree frog on the capacitor terminals. I cleaned it off, everything else looked good, so I put it back together and reset everything. It started, but seemed sluggish and noticably dimmed the lights. I figured the capacitor must have been damaged. About 30 minutes later, it tripped again. This time it was late evening, and the house was cool, so I turned everything off and waited until morning to call the installer. His immediate response was “yep - bad compressor, you probably have a bad electrical service there”. I told him no, everything is fine, has been since I moved in, no electrical problems with anything. But he maintained that the compressor motor had probably gone bad due to an electrical problem.
While waiting until the following Wednesday for him to get a new compressor, I had time to think about it. In the winter of 2021 (first winter here), I had the outside unit completely ice up. I thought it was supposed to defrost itself, so I figured something didn’t work right. I shut it down, used warm water to de-ice it, and reset everything. It worked fine after that, but with two or three times more it had slight amount of icing a the bottom of the coil. I only had one slight icing in winter 2022, and none that I saw this past winter. I don’t know why I didn’t think to have the defrost cycle checked, but it seemed to be working ok otherwise. Meanwhile, curiosity got the best of me, and knowing I don’t have “electrical problems” I went and check it myself. I disconnected the leads to the compressor and capacitor. The capacitor was fine, Fluke showing 70uF and 10uF, and about 1megohm to ground on the terminals. The compressor windings were 28ohms common-run, and 0.8ohms common-start, and 28.8 total, with about 1.1megohms to the unit ground and to the refrigerant line. So it seems to be ok electrically. This to me is a clear sign that the compressor impeller is locked up - giving the locked-rotor condition on start. I even checked the breaker by swapping it out with a spare I have - same trip.
The tech swapped out the compressor, told me he checked the old one and “got continuity on the winding, so the motor is bad”. I said wait, you are supposed to get continuity - it’s a continuous winding - did you check it to ground? He said yeas and it was open to ground. I said well, sounds fine to me. We had a discussion about how motors work, and I told him it didn’t look like a bad winding to me. They maintain that I had an electrical problem that fried the motor in the compressor - maybe lightning.
I asked them to check/test the defrost cycle, after telling them about remembering the icing problem, and they immediately found two LEDs indicating “Failed Coil Sensor”. He said yeah the defrost cycle is probably not working, and he replaced the sensor. He said well, maybe that could have had something to do with it, but it was probably electrical. The new unit is noticably quieter than the old one, I had complained to myself about how loud it was when it was running, but never put the two together. I am normally not like this, so I am pretty upset with myself - although I think the damage was done by the failed defrost cycle, and it was only a matter of time.
My main question is, how likely is it that this failed defrost sensor caused liquid refrigerant to enter the compressor? Have any of you seen this sort of thing before? How likely is it that I have parts and pieces from the scroll circulating in my system, and will have another failure in the near future?
BTW, I contacted Rheem about the warranty, because this contractor was sketchy about it - he never would admit if this was a warranty repair, but he didn’t charge me for parts specifically. There is one line item on the invoice: “Replace bad compressor.” And, the price he charged is what I see as about the average wholesale price of a new compressor, so it is clear that he got warranty parts on this. Rheem called me yesterday and confirmed that my unit was never registered, so I only have 5 years, but that it probably covered the replacement compressor with the local distributor. The contractor or builder never gave me any paper work for the unit, and never said anything about registering it for the 10 year extended warranty. That’s the kind of service we get around here these days.
I have a new house, the Rheem 4-ton RP14 unit was installed in April 2020. Same contractor installed the duct work, airhandler, etc. - did the entire system. Last week, naturally two days before the 4th, the compressor locked up. I has been replaced now, and everything seems to be working.
Here are the details: about four weeks ago, the compressor unit breaker tripped in the middle of the night. I turned the thermostat to off, and reset the breaker, then waited a few minutes and put it back to cool. The unit started and I went back to bed. A couple of weeks later, Sunday 2nd July, it tripped in the afternoon, I found it when I noticed the house getting warm. Same procedure, and it restarted ok. About 1 hour later it tripped again. At this point, I was concerned something may be burned up in the unit, so I took the cover off the control panel and contactor space. There was a dead tree frog on the capacitor terminals. I cleaned it off, everything else looked good, so I put it back together and reset everything. It started, but seemed sluggish and noticably dimmed the lights. I figured the capacitor must have been damaged. About 30 minutes later, it tripped again. This time it was late evening, and the house was cool, so I turned everything off and waited until morning to call the installer. His immediate response was “yep - bad compressor, you probably have a bad electrical service there”. I told him no, everything is fine, has been since I moved in, no electrical problems with anything. But he maintained that the compressor motor had probably gone bad due to an electrical problem.
While waiting until the following Wednesday for him to get a new compressor, I had time to think about it. In the winter of 2021 (first winter here), I had the outside unit completely ice up. I thought it was supposed to defrost itself, so I figured something didn’t work right. I shut it down, used warm water to de-ice it, and reset everything. It worked fine after that, but with two or three times more it had slight amount of icing a the bottom of the coil. I only had one slight icing in winter 2022, and none that I saw this past winter. I don’t know why I didn’t think to have the defrost cycle checked, but it seemed to be working ok otherwise. Meanwhile, curiosity got the best of me, and knowing I don’t have “electrical problems” I went and check it myself. I disconnected the leads to the compressor and capacitor. The capacitor was fine, Fluke showing 70uF and 10uF, and about 1megohm to ground on the terminals. The compressor windings were 28ohms common-run, and 0.8ohms common-start, and 28.8 total, with about 1.1megohms to the unit ground and to the refrigerant line. So it seems to be ok electrically. This to me is a clear sign that the compressor impeller is locked up - giving the locked-rotor condition on start. I even checked the breaker by swapping it out with a spare I have - same trip.
The tech swapped out the compressor, told me he checked the old one and “got continuity on the winding, so the motor is bad”. I said wait, you are supposed to get continuity - it’s a continuous winding - did you check it to ground? He said yeas and it was open to ground. I said well, sounds fine to me. We had a discussion about how motors work, and I told him it didn’t look like a bad winding to me. They maintain that I had an electrical problem that fried the motor in the compressor - maybe lightning.
I asked them to check/test the defrost cycle, after telling them about remembering the icing problem, and they immediately found two LEDs indicating “Failed Coil Sensor”. He said yeah the defrost cycle is probably not working, and he replaced the sensor. He said well, maybe that could have had something to do with it, but it was probably electrical. The new unit is noticably quieter than the old one, I had complained to myself about how loud it was when it was running, but never put the two together. I am normally not like this, so I am pretty upset with myself - although I think the damage was done by the failed defrost cycle, and it was only a matter of time.
My main question is, how likely is it that this failed defrost sensor caused liquid refrigerant to enter the compressor? Have any of you seen this sort of thing before? How likely is it that I have parts and pieces from the scroll circulating in my system, and will have another failure in the near future?
BTW, I contacted Rheem about the warranty, because this contractor was sketchy about it - he never would admit if this was a warranty repair, but he didn’t charge me for parts specifically. There is one line item on the invoice: “Replace bad compressor.” And, the price he charged is what I see as about the average wholesale price of a new compressor, so it is clear that he got warranty parts on this. Rheem called me yesterday and confirmed that my unit was never registered, so I only have 5 years, but that it probably covered the replacement compressor with the local distributor. The contractor or builder never gave me any paper work for the unit, and never said anything about registering it for the 10 year extended warranty. That’s the kind of service we get around here these days.
