In the “this is why you test things before you need them” category: AC problems.
Heat wave this week and improbably the first time we had to turn on the air all year. Usually there’s a week or two in April you might have to flip it on or definitely by the start of May, but we got to Memorial Day this year. Turned it on Monday night as the upstairs was still pretty warm. Woke up it was still running, which seemed odd given the temperatures outside had dipped into the 50s overnight. But didn't give it too much thought. Last night turned it on and after a couple hours realized it didn't feel all that much cooler in the house. Checked the thermostat and it had only dropped a degree from 78 to 77. Put a thermometer to the vent and it's only spitting out 75 degrees. Now, it's an older unit, but it was still giving me high 50s last year, so clearly something is wrong.
The first thing any search gives you for AC is to change the filter, which I needed to do anyway. Got that done and go back upstairs and take out the thermometer. Now it's giving me 72 degree air, but since the sun had gone down at this point I'm pretty sure that was just due to the timing. Again leave it running last night, just because it was still in the 80s outside around midnight, so 72 is better than nothing. Clearly something is wrong. We had it serviced last September after realizing how dirty it could be when we cleaned out the broken condensate pump and humidifer line, but the AC/Furance side wasn't easily accessible so I figured I would go with a professional. I'm almost certain that we ran it after it was serviced since it was just after Labor Day, otherwise I think I would haven noticed an issue last year. Plus I'd hate to try to go back to them after this long saying they broke my AC.
The most telling thing is that the condensate pump is bone dry. If there's literally nothing going into that, that means this is essentially running in fan mode, right? I've tried searching for that one specific symptom to see if it would help diagnose the problem overall, but all the results are just for condensate pumps failing, which this one has not. Reading up on other potential fixes or reasons that show up online (minus spraying the condenser with water) and they all appear to be things that should have either been noted or fixed last year either during our own DIY cleaning or when we had the servicing done. Seems odd that it would go from a tune-up to failing in such a small window of run time.
