# air conditioner freeze up



## wedginfool (Nov 10, 2008)

hi all i'm having a problem with my airconditioner freezing up on me when the temps outside are cool...............i can turn off the airconditioner and just let the fan run and it will melt the ice...........but then the temps rise in my flower tent.............this morning it is 27 degrees outside, now you'd think that when it's this temperature outside i wouldn't have to run the airconditioner at all just let it pull in the fresh cold air from outside right??? ..........well it doesn't work that way, ........... i think this is because an airconditioner cools the air in the room and exchanges the heat outside from the back of the airconditioner............. and i'm not sure if when i just put it on the fan mode that it's pulling the air from outside or if it is just recirculating the air in the room........... my guess is that it is only recirculating the air from inside the room.   I'm thinking that i am going to have to change from an airconditioner that sits in the window to a fan that sits in the window to get access to this very cold outside air.  i would have to build some kind of manifold and pipe the air into the tent which would be easy enough to do that's what i have on the airconditioner but my concern is with a window fan that that the light from the flower room woiuld escape and cause a security issue.............the airconditioner has 2 cooling coils or radiatiors and no light escapes out the back of it. but doing it with one of these cheap little window fans that sit in the window like an airconditioner my feeling is that light would escape.
the other alternative i have is to redesign my flower room and mount the airconditioner to the flower room ........... but wouldn't this just exchange the air to outside the flower tent heating up the rest of the room????  I mean the flower tent would  be cool but the rest of the room would be hot wouldn't it

would anyone please give me a little advice or tips on your cooling secrets
p.s.  i'm in an apartment so i cant go putting venting into the walls to the outside
thanks in advance for any replies


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## andy52 (Nov 10, 2008)

i had that prob. with an window unit i had.a friend gave her a shot of freon and she never did it again.i do not know for sure if it cured the problem or not though.i sold the ac unit due to the windows wher i moved too.roll out instead of pull up.thats why i bought a couple portable units for my veg and grow areas.
  i used a blow dryer to de-frost my unit when it froze up.works quicker than waiting for it to do it on its own.jmo


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## slowmo77 (Nov 10, 2008)

when an a/c freezes its due to being low on freon.


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## Growdude (Nov 10, 2008)

Andy is right if its low it will freeze up but it also will freeze up when its too cold outside.

All window AC units recirculate the rooms air, the warm air you feel out the back is just the heat being extracted from the condensor not the room.

Thats why it wont work to just hook it right to the tent as the heat will bring the room temps up unless you can exhaust the hot air from the back outside.

This time of year I use my grow lights as my heat source for the bedroom this keeps the room temps down and the house livable.


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## wedginfool (Nov 10, 2008)

that's funny because it done it since it was brand new..........it's just a cheapy right at 100 bucks completed one grow with it and it's a contunuous problem turning it off and on to defrost it
do you think you can add freon to them even the cheap ones???


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## slowmo77 (Nov 10, 2008)

yes you can have freon added even though its a cheap on. if it has always froze up then i'd say it was low when you bought it. im not sure if you'll have to pull a vaccum on the line to add more or not but its very cheap to have it done. jmo


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## wedginfool (Nov 10, 2008)

Growdude said:
			
		

> Andy is right if its low it will freeze up but it also will freeze up when its too cold outside.
> 
> All window AC units recirculate the rooms air, the warm air you feel out the back is just the heat being extracted from the condensor not the room.
> 
> ...



yeah so far this year i haven't had the heat on at all and it's below freezing here..........i would like to buy one of those stand up units too but the price is very high for those, that's why i would like to buy one of those cheap window fans that expand to fit your window like an airconditioner and then build a light trap and manifold to pipe the cold outside air to my flower room
any ideas on that??:


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## wedginfool (Nov 10, 2008)

does anyone else's airconditioner act like this and if so how do you fix it???


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