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How to Fix a Frozen Air Conditioner

How to Fix a Frozen Air Conditioner

So you're wondering how to fix a frozen air conditioner, or if you can even fix it yourself. It sounds strange that a central air conditioner working to cool your home in the hottest months of the year could freeze. However, many homeowners end up with this uncomfortable issue every year. Learn how to identify and fix this issue below.

How do I know if my air conditioner is frozen?

The first thing you may notice when your air conditioner is frozen is that your home is getting warmer and more humid. If you have a two-story home, you may notice this change more quickly upstairs. Another tell-tale sign that indicates a frozen ac unit is ice buildup on the outdoor unit. If you feel warm air coming out of your vents, you'll need to check your system. Open or unscrew the access panel to the evaporator. If any of the equipment or panels are covered in ice or the ac coils are frozen, then your system’s refrigerant may have fallen below 32 degrees, resulting in a frozen AC.

What causes an air conditioner to freeze?

There are many reasons an air conditioning system might freeze. These are the most common reasons:

How to Fix a Frozen HVAC Unit

Since a frozen air conditioner can be caused by many different issues, it is possible that you'll need an HVAC technician to tackle the job. However, there are some things you can try first, before calling an HVAC specialist.

1. Check the Vent Filters

If you have a clogged vent filter it is probably restricting airflow. If filters look dirty, go ahead and change them and see if that fixes the problem. A dirty filter can cause all sorts of problems, so make sure you inspect and change your filters regularly.

2. Inspect the Coils and Fins

Go ahead and also inspect the coils and cooling fins around the evaporator. Dirty coils create issues in the efficacy of the system. If look like they need cleaning, use a soft brush and gently remove any dust or debris. Check to see if all the supply registers throughout your home are open so you're not restricting airflow, which puts extra stress on the system.

3. Check Coolant Levels

Low coolant can alter your a/c system’s pressure and cooling efficiency, which can cause the unit to freeze. You'll need a coolant installation kit at your home improvement store to check your system's refrigerant levels and correct them if needed. If your refrigerant levels are low, you may have a leak. You will need to contact an HVAC professional to fix this issue.

4. Reset the Power

After the ice melts and you've taken all the above steps to try to remedy the problem, you'll need to restart your system to see if it's functioning properly. Restore power and turn the thermostat to the cooling mode. After a few minutes, you should be able to feel cool air blowing from the vents before the end of the cooling cycle. If not, there may be additional damage to the unit or a refrigerant leak, and you’ll need to contact a professional HVAC technician for help.   Even if your unit seems to be working normally, it still may be a good idea to double check with an HVAC service appointment and confirm the main cause of the HVAC issues. AC problems should be managed immediately to prevent further damage to the components of the system.

How to prevent a frozen AC in the future

Your HVAC system works hard. For many months out of the year, it is running the majority of the day, every day. and requires regular maintenance to continue working properly and efficiently. Dolphin Cooling offers maintenance plans to ensure that our customers are protected from issues like a frozen AC through regular prevention measures. Some things that you can do to prevent a frozen AC in the future:

Dolphin Cooling Maintenance Plans

Our maintenance plans offer something for everyone and focus on extending the life of your unit. Maintenance includes inspection of your air handler and condensing unit, cleaning the drain line, and more. You can get full details about our plans on our website. Call us for more information or to schedule service for your air conditioner unit at (239) 596-9044 or request an appointment online.
  Charlie McDermott: Welcome to Comfort on Porpoise, sponsored by Dolphin Cooling & Heating, who have been providing 24/7 Comfort on Porpoise since 1998. Hey, there, it's Charlie McDermott, producer of the comfort on Corpus podcast. And once again, I have Lauren here co-hosting with me. Lauren, how are you doing? Lauren Willeford: I'm good. How are you today, Charlie? Charlie McDermott: I am good. I always feel great when you are a co-host, because what do I know about these topics? So I know today we're going to talk more about the sanitation part of the air, can I call it the air experience? Do you guys use that terminology at all? Lauren Willeford: We don't, but that's not a bad way to put it. Hey, I mean, the AC is basically the lungs of the house, so it is the air. Charlie McDermott: And therefore, the lungs that are in our bodies inhale what's coming out of the lungs of the house.  Lauren Willeford: Correct. Charlie McDermott: That's why I loved the topic today and what you're going to get into. So let's start with that. What are you talking about? Lauren Willeford: We offer a service called duct sanitization. A lot of people think when they think about their duct work, they think duct cleaning. And there are companies that do offer duct cleaning. Most applications for duct cleaning are with sheet metal duct work, because it uses this almost like a rotary brush that scrapes the interior of the duct and then there's this vacuum attached to it. So as it scrapes, it kind of sucks everything out and into this machine.  That application of duct cleaning doesn't work on most duck work inside residential applications, because it's either made of duct board or what we call flex duct, both of which are made with fiberglass. So if you were to use that rotary style brush inside of either one of those, the duct board or the flex duct, it's actually going to tear up the fiberglass, which then releases fiberglass particles, which would float through your air. And eventually you'd breathe them in. Nobody wants that. Okay. That's bad. It's just bad.  We have another solution and it's called duck sanitization. And it's a pretty simple process. The actual sanitization itself takes about 15 to 30 minutes, but start to finish it's about an hour. Our techs come out and what we do is attach to your air handler. Typically the supply plenum, we cut a small hole in that and we use a machine called a fogger. We hook the fogger up to the supply plenum, attach it to that hole and we use a solution that's called Bio-Fresh. Bio-Fresh is safe for both pets and people. So it's not something where you have to leave the home, or it would be toxic, nothing like that. And we put the solution into the fogger machine and then pump it through the ductwork. So by putting it right into the supply plenum, as the air moves, it'll actually filter out through all of the duct work in your entire house. Now, the key to doing this is to make sure that you don't wanna use too much solution cuz you don't wanna make anything wet. So when we do it, we do it in a way that it's basically this very fine mist that you almost can't even see, will float through the ductwork, you know, come back out your vents and everything like that. It does have a little bit of a smell to it, it leaves kind of a fresh smell. But not any major scent to it. Because nobody wants to smell that, it wouldn’t smell very good. So we let that pump through the system for about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of your house and how much duct work you have. And as that chemical, as that solution goes through all the duct work, it basically just sanitizes any growth that might have started to develop inside your duct work. Most ductwork inside residential homes is typically fairly clean. I haven't personally run across any cases where anyone had real significant mold damage, unless let's say the house has been sitting for a very long time, like a year or more with no AC and no one's been in it or anything like that. But this does help to eliminate anything that may potentially be in there.  We recommend that people do it when they get a new system installed. It's a great time to do it cuz we're in there taking out the old system. So that way we kind of clean everything. So you get a fresh start essentially. Or we'll all also offer it to people at maintenances. If they have a little bit of an older system or if we found growth inside the cabinet, which is what our UV coil light is designed to prevent and treat and kill as any growth inside the cabinet. If we found any growth, say someone doesn't have a UV light, we may recommend adding the UV light, just to do the duck sanitation, to make sure that everything gets removed.  So again, it's like that whole notion of starting fresh and customers have been very happy with this service. It works well. It's not extremely expensive, it's very affordable. And it's not something you have to do all the time. So it wouldn't be like every year you need to have your duct sanitized. No, you might do it every three to five years. So one, two times over the course of say a 10 year lifespan of a piece of equipment. So it's not needed constantly. It wouldn't be, come in and sanitize my ducts every year, every six months, it's not necessary.  Charlie McDermott: That’s good to know. So you'd mentioned this in conjunction with the UV lighting. I know we talked about this in a previous episode, for listeners who certainly can go back and listen. You wanna give a quick overview of how that works? Lauren Willeford: Sure, our UV lights, which we have talked about before, it's called a UV coil light. It emits UV rays like you get from the sun in high concentration. The lights are good for a year, excuse me, the bulb is good for a year. As far as the potency of its effectiveness, it goes inside the air handler, which is that indoor unit in the cabinet in an area where it's going to cover the vast majority of the service area of the coil, but the light also reflects around the cabinet. So it helps prevent or kill any microbial growth, any bacteria, things of that nature. And because it is in the cabinet and all the air in the whole house is going to cycle through that air handler. It does come in contact with the air.  It's not an air purification system, so I'm not going to call it that, but anything that would be in the air, if it passed by the UV light, it would be killed. And that's real simple. The original ballast install with the bulb and then annually with that product, you do have to replace the bulb in order to keep the efficiency because it is a stationary bulb. So over time dust will collect on there, which diminishes the UVS potency. Charlie McDermott: Wow, good stuff. So, you know, my back ground with health clubs and all and you know, I've always been a big fan, pre COVID, doing everything we can to boost our immune system or at least keep keeping chinks away from the armor, you know? Lauren Willeford: Yes. Charlie McDermott: I think a lot of little things accumulate over time. And then when something like a COVID or heck even the flu or, or God knows what else, hopefully nothing crazy, but stuff happens. So what can we do to put the odds in our favor? I love your terminology,  the lungs of the house. I mean, truly your air system is the lungs of the house. And if we lived in an area that has a power plant that spews out all pollution? I don't know if that's what they do. We don't allow that, but if something that really tarnished the air grew up in our neighborhood, we'd all put for sale signs up and go someplace else. It's those things we don't see that can really make a big difference either for or against us. So love, as I said, when we started this duct sanitation, I love what you guys are doing to do everything we can for those invisible chinks in the armor and continue to help us not only stay healthy, but stay cool or give us comfort on porpoise. Lauren Willeford: Yup, comfort on porpoise. So yes, between duck sanitation and UV, those are things, as you mentioned, to kind of help prevent any chinks in the armor. And you know, they're a benefit both to your system, I mean, neither one is a required part in order to make the system actually run, but they help. They do help with your indoor air quality. They do help as far as keeping the inside of the cabinet clear, which all the air in the house comes in contact with.  So it does, every little thing can certainly help. And we don't tend to think of our AC until it breaks, but these are some things that we can do to try and make it better, extend the life, get a little better air quality out of it. You know, there's all things that we can do along the way. Charlie McDermott: Love it, Lauren. Well, once again, open my eyes and I know our listeners are looking forward to the next episode. Lauren Willeford: Yes and I wanna wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. We've got that coming up this week. I can't believe we're already getting to Thanksgiving. This year has just flown by! Charlie McDermott: Yes. Well, you have a wonderful one and we will look forward to catching up again post Thanksgiving,  pre-Christmas! Lauren Willeford: Sounds great. Thank you so much, Charlie. Thanks for listening, everyone. Charlie McDermott: Thanks for listening to Comfort on Porpoise. To learn more about our sponsor, Dolphin Cooling & Heating visit www.dolphincooling.com or call 239-596-9044. That’s 239-596-9044.
Charlie McDermott: Welcome to Comfort on Porpoise, sponsored by Dolphin Cooling & Heating, who have been providing 24/7 Comfort on Porpoise since 1998. Hey, welcome everyone. This is Charlie McDermott, back in the Comfort on Porpoise studio with Lauren. Lauren, how you doing?    Lauren Willeford: I'm good. How are you, Charlie?    Charlie McDermott: I'm doing great. Great to see you. Although unfortunately, our listeners can't see you, but if they could, they'd be just thrilled to see you, but we'll have to deal with your voice today, once again. There's so much we can talk about but you had shared with me this new product or service that you have, you call drain guard. My goodness, you know when I first got into my home here it didn't take long before the ceiling was raining and it was sunny outside and I'm going, “What's going on here?” Welcome to Florida, Charlie.   Lauren Willeford: That was before you had us as your service provider, right?   Charlie McDermott: Yes, for sure. And Lauren, I’ve got to say, we've been in our home, we moved here in 2015, full-time 2016 and we have gone through countless AC companies, guys, whatever you want to call it. This was the first summer where I, and I’ve said this Barb number of times, I don't walk into the house like fingers crossed, hoping and praying that it's cooler inside than it is outside. The AC was awesome all through the summer, it was great. I went from hoping and praying that the house stays cool to I just expect it now. And thanks to you guys. For our listeners, we brought Lauren's team on board here, I guess last year. You guys came in, did a review, took care of a few things. We had an ongoing issue and to this day, until you guys came on board, I never really understood. Is it okay if I blabber on here by the way?   Lauren Willeford: Oh yes, I appreciate it, Charlie. That’s okay!   Charlie McDermott: I don't know anything about cars, I don't know anything about electricity or wiring homes, I certainly don't know anything about AC. And if you're going to work with a company, you’ve got to work with someone you can trust in all those cases, because if the car repair guy says, “Hey, you've got a fratastat indicator thing that you need a thousand dollar part”...What do I know?    Lauren Willeford: Right, you don’t. It’s true.   Charlie McDermott: And I almost wouldn't care as long as my car kept running. It was the same thing with the A/C. I don't care what it is, charge me an arm and a leg. I just want to be able to go to bed at night and know that it’s cooler in the house than it is outside. And that's what you guys did and certainly at a price point that I was like, wow! Yes, my goodness, I wish I knew this five years ago. So anyway, with that rant, Lauren, let’s get back to the topic at hand here. So back to the drain guard. Tell us about what you're doing with that and how that's helping your clients.   Lauren Willeford: Okay. So drain guard is a new product that we've added to our service lineup. Drain Guard is actually the brand itself, and this is a little device, it's like clear PVC pipe, and on the bottom hangs this little cartridge and there's a filter inside. This goes into the condensate drain line so that when the water is flowing out of your AC system, because it's coming off the evaporator coil, that's the humidity it pulls out of the air, flows through the condensate drain line, outside your home. This product is designed to eliminate those nuisance, no cool calls.  So what we have found is statistically 85% of most no cool calls that come in for us are usually due to a condensate drain line being backed up. And a lot of people are like, “Well, how does it get backed up?” It’s because you've got water flowing through there. We live in a subtropic environment, so over time algae and slime builds up. So if you think about your drains at home, right, when they get clogged, it builds up and it coats the inside of the drain until the point that the water can't flow through anymore. The same thing happens in your condensate drain. So with this little device, you put it into the condensate drain as the water flows through, it flows in, flows down through the cartridge, back up, and then back out through your drain line. The cartridge itself helps with fungus, slime, bacteria, and algae. Basically it's cleaning the water in order to keep your drain line clear. So that way it's constantly flowing, eliminating the need for you to call us up and say, “Hey, I've got no cool, oh my goodness, it's so hot in my house!” And we come out to find out, yep, your drain line is backed up. We vacuum it out, we flush it out and clean it until it's flowing properly again. And then your AC kicks back on. Good news is if that happens, that means the float switches inside your system are working properly so that you don't end up with your situation, Charlie, which is it starts raining through the ceiling in your house or in your garage or wherever the air handler is located.    Charlie McDermott: Oh boy, yes, brings back memories.   Lauren Willeford: I'm sure, and they're probably not good ones. And we just recently started offering this to our customers because before doing so, we wanted to actually test it out for ourselves. So we installed one actually in our Vice President’s house on his AC system and tested it over the last year to ensure that, does this really work? Is this going to be beneficial for the customer? So when you purchase it, initially it comes with one cartridge, and then the cartridges are designed to be replaced every six months in order for it to function properly, to keep your drain line as clear as possible, especially during the warmer summer months. That's when we get a lot of the backed up condensate drain line issues. So for customers or anyone listening, if you have regular maintenance done on your AC, which down here, it's definitely recommended that it be done twice a year, which would be every six months. Every six months, you'd have this filter cartridge replaced, the whole goal being that you don't have to call us because your drain line got backed up. Nothing's 100% guaranteed, but from what we saw when we installed it, it definitely significantly helps. Our VP has not had any drain line issues since we put this into his house. So we highly recommend it. And right now it's actually a great time to maybe look into it, either get yourself on a maintenance plan or even just have this product installed. And then you can have the cartridges replaced, we can come out and replace them for you every six months. Coming up in November, starting November 15th through December 15th we are offering a promo on this product because we believe in it that much. We're giving any customer who calls in and schedules to have this service done, have us come over and install a drain guard for them, they're going to get 15% off of the service. So it's going to save you a little bit of money and also give you some peace of mind and hopefully prevent all of those nuisance, no cool calls because of your drain line. It's a simple little thing, but it makes a really big impact.   Charlie McDermott: Love it, love it. And yes, to your point, one of these days I'm going to do an experiment and put a popsicle stick in the ground and just add water. And probably before I know it there'll be a tree there. It doesn't take long, wherever water is. It doesn't take long. I've learned that something's going to grow there. And if it grows in our condensation piping or tubing, that's not a good thing. So that's great. Well I love the fact that you guys continue to be on the forefront, finding more and more ways to keep us guys in Southwest Florida cool. And you know, for me and I know a lot of our listeners, it's all about just staying cool and you know, hey, whatever, if I have a problem and I need help, great, get someone out here. But I'd rather, again, cruise along and have you guys show up a couple of times a year, take care of things, know that I have that peace of mind.  I've even thought about that time when we had the rain. Occasionally we'll go over to Boca to visit our daughter. So we're gone a couple of days, and what if that had happened right when we left? And you have now, not only the air conditioning not working, but then the water and the moisture and the mold. So anything we can do to protect our home from that calamity, sign me up.   Lauren Willeford: Yes, it's a big deal! Our whole goal is to provide Comfort on Porpoise, that’s the podcast name. And so we're always looking at what products are out there to benefit the customer, to try and ensure that you have as few AC inconveniences as possible. Not that we don't want to come see our customers. We love to see you guys, but we'd rather see you under good terms, like your systems running, and we're there to do your maintenance and keep it that way, versus you call us out because you're uncomfortable. So this is just another product we've added, and so far we've had really great luck with it.    We've had customers have them installed as well. So we're excited now to be able to offer this promotion we have going on, because we really we believe in it that much, we feel like it's really that important for people.   Charlie McDermott: Yes, yes, that's great. One last, just to give your listeners the experience that I've received on a regular basis. What I love is when your tech comes, does the maintenance, we get, I don't know, a report card or check, you know. We know where our system is because as we all know, if we've been here long enough in Southwest Florida, our heat and AC system in Westchester, Pennsylvania lasted us over 20 years. I mean, it's a whole different ball game down here.   Lauren Willeford: Yes, it's very different down here with the AC. Really, we've had people who have significantly older systems. If you can get 15 years out of your AC, that's really good. Typically as they start creeping in age, if you haven't done regular maintenance, you experience a whole lot more problems. We actually just had a customer of ours, we installed two new AC systems at their residence. They were both older, but we have been providing them service, I think for the last about a decade. And I actually went out to the job site and spoke with the customer the day we were there installing, and the customer said to me, his direct feedback was, “You know, I tell everybody about you guys, ‘cause I really feel that the fact that we had you come every six months to do maintenance, allowed us to get nearly 20 years out of both systems.” So it was time, but they really got that extra time because of that preventative maintenance, trying to stay on top of things. It doesn't mean repairs don't pop up, but major repairs are delayed and the overall system function is still there for a longer period of time.   Charlie McDermott: And that's what I love, that report card gives me an idea of, I know at some point I'm going to need to replace my systems, but no one likes surprises. To be able to know, hey, the system's in good shape or you might have to keep an eye out for this or that is awesome. You know, I sleep better and I can go away for long weekends knowing that the system's in good shape and when the time comes, hey, it'll be even better because you'll be on top of the latest, greatest A/C systems, and we'll be having a podcast about that one of these days.   Lauren Willeford: Yes we will. So yes, the report card you're referencing is, just so our listeners know, it's our maintenance checklist. So it's all the components that the techs go through and check to let you know and make you aware of anything if they have any recommendations, anything they noticed. So yes, it does try and help to eliminate surprises as much as possible because nobody likes to be surprised with a big AC repair.   Charlie McDermott: Yes, that's terrific. Well, Lauren really appreciate you filling us in on the latest, greatest drain guard and look forward to the next episode.   Lauren Willeford: Thank you so much, Charlie. Thank you to everybody for listening. Look forward to talking with everyone again soon.    Charlie McDermott: Thanks for listening to Comfort on Porpoise. To learn more about our sponsor, Dolphin Cooling & Heating visit www.dolphincooling.com or call 239-596-9044. That's 239-596-9044.      
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Your air conditioning system is a lot more complicated than people think.  It's not some unit stuck in a window and plugged into the wall.  If your unit is stuck in the window well... we don't do that.  Otherwise, we do and it is safe to assume that your system has these four or five main components:

INDOOR UNIT

The indoor unit is known as the Air Handler.

OUTDOOR UNIT

The outdoor unit is known as the Condenser.

Ductwork System

First of all, it is important to understand that proper ductwork design and balancing is crucial for even comfort in the home.  Most importantly, the size of the ducts needs to be correct for the volume of air needed to cool the home.  More often than not, the ductwork is under sized.  As a result,  the entire system has to struggle to meet the demand.

Drain System

The condensate/evaporator drain line drains the condensed humidity (water) removed from the home.

Advanced Systems

Finally, more advanced systems usually include additional zones.  For example, the master bedroom could be a separate zone from the main living space.

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