:thumbup: Two weeks ago a friend told me her A/C was slowly dying (dieing?) ... whatever ... was cooling less and less each day. Here in southern NC, it's been HOT HOT HOT, so this was pretty bad news. Someone told her to check the battery on her thermostat? HUH? Who knew thermostats had batteries? But she pulled it off the wall, replaced the battery, and it works fine now.

So Tuesday I came home from work and my house was 85 degrees and the A/C wasn't running at ALL. After my moment of panic and dismay thinking about the $ for the service call, I pulled the themostat off the wall and, sure 'nuff, there were two AA batteries in it. I pulled some out of the Swiffer and stuck them in the thermostate and ... voila ... free fix!!

Neither of us had ever heard of this, and when I told my parents, they hadn't either. Maybe this is something the repair guys never tell us ... just come in and change the battery and charge us a small fortune to "fix" the A/C unit??

In any event, I've been passing this tip on to everybody. Sure saved me some bucks, and I hope you can do the same some time.

Sharon

Wow!! I NEVER would have even thought of this!! I'm so glad you told us! That will be the first thing I'll check now! :thumbup:

Great tip! Thank you for sharing this with us :D:D:D

Not to sustain the "dumb blonde" jokes out there but... maybe you should point out this only works for central A/C that works off a wall mounted thermostat, not a window A/C.

Unless, of course, this dumb blonde doesn't know about window A/Cs that do have battery operated thermostats! :-)

I don't have A/C but this is a good thing to know. Next time my folks talk about their air not working real well I will have to remember what you said.

I am going to go and check mine. It just doesn't seem to run at the appropriate times - the colder it gets, the more the A/C runs. Maybe it just needs new batteries. Worth a try! Thanks!

I guess this post was meant just for me :D . We have a very small house about 900 square feet and our bill has been climbing and climbing since the heat wave hit. We received our bill today at almost 500 bucks YIKES! No, we don't have it set at 40 either. Today the fan wasn't blowing anything, called the landlord and the repair guys called and said that it was probably 'frozen'. So we turned it off the past hour or so and it started blowing a little, then I read this post..... Yep, there are batteries in the silly thermostat! Let's see if that makes a difference and THANK YOU for posting this!

WOW, great tip!

does any one know if a window mounted Ac can be fixed or whatever they do to it. It just wont cool off house and it used to . HELP !!!!

we just changed the batteries in ours last week. Thanks to our neighbor who changed his several days prior, we knew what to do as soon as ac quit working

Wow, that was an easy fix. Good tip.

Wow, what a great tip. Thanks for sharing.

great tip, thanks for sharing with us

Re: your window a/c unit. We have had several window units over the years. One thing I do know is that you should, occasionally, take a hose to the part that is outside and truly blow water right through it. I know...sounds strange but that is what one service guy told us. Generally, it is just as economical to replace the unit than have a service call. We have something strange going on with our big unit downstairs....it will beep 3 times and then just stop. Yesterday, it had stopped then later just came back on...but I could not control it with the remote, or even by the control pad on the a/c itself. Last night, it beeped 3 times and turned off. We finally opened the windows...thank goodness it was cooling off finally. This morning, I tried everything...unplugged, hit the reset button, replaced batteries in the remote..you name it. I was about set to go out and just buy a new one (this one is in its 3rd season) when my DH came home...he messed around with it for awhile and had no luck. In frustration, he hit the control panel and...it came back on! The next one I get will not have all these computerized controls...just a good ol' knob. We would love to have central air, however, our house has no duct work and we just don't want the expense of installing it.

A window mount unit can be fixed...You need to take out of window...thake the cover off.Then spray it down wit some household cleaner...[lysol] Then spray and wash all of the inside dirt away....be particular about washing around the cooling coilsand the inside thermostat sensor...Get it good and clean...dry off and replace it in the window...
We do this every spring, to keep ours in working order...
p38flygirl

Now that's info we can all use!!! thanks! We have a floor model A/C that we bought from Home Depot. It has a reservoir for water that the A/C pulls out of the air. the A/C stopped working the other day and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. It gave us a code but we couldn't find the manual on it. Finally, DH started guessing. The water reservoir was empty. BUT we found there were two other places in the back that we had to drain water out of!!!! We've run this thing for 5 yrs and NEVER had to drain it thru those spickets before!!!!!! Now it's working wonderfully!