[captube]

(1) Yes

(2) The technician probably switched your t-stat to cool to check his low voltage wiring.

I understand what you are saying, but there are a couple of things that make me wonder:

1) When my wife reset the breaker, the AC went on and ran for a second or two, and then started smoking. If there was a pre-existing issue that had caused the breaker to trip earlier would it have turned on at all and started smoking this time?

2) Why did the AC kick in when my wife reset the breaker when the thermostat was set to heat? It has been in the 40-50 degree range - how could we not have the heat on?

 

[captube]

In that case go back to the dangling wrangler's post about fused contacts, makes good sense.

The technician said that he didn't switch the thermostat to cool. He said that the reason he thought the compressor failed was because it kicked on when it was too cold outside for it to turn on (which seemed wierd to me since it was about 50degrees).

 

[captube]

Your breaker was off


QUOTE=Tepp;2029574]Thanks guys - this is good info - I appreciate it.

If the contacts were fused I assume that means the AC would be running continously? Wouldn't that have made our house so cold that we would have noticed?[/QUOTE]

 

[captube]

it might have run continuously for awhile.

My position is, it was on it's last leg before the device was installed.

I assumed what you meant was that because the contact was fused in the on position the AC ran continously to the point where it tripped the breaker. That is why I assumed we would have known because the AC cools our place down very quickly - it would be like a morgue if it ran fo more than a couple of hours.

Is it possible that some type of short happened which caused the breaker to trip and the contact to be fused at the same time?