My Rambling Thoughts

Air-con broke down again

In the first week of April, my air-con broke down again. Everything seemed to work, but it was not blowing cold air. There were two notable points:

  • It did blow cold air at the start and every hour or so
  • The compressor was shaking quite hard and there was no wind from the fan
  • It also felt a bit warmer than usual

The air-con compressor is Daikin MA56EV16. Specs: non-inverter, 20,267 BTU/hr, cooling capacity 5.94 kW, current 7.6A, sound level 54 dB(A).

Indoor unit: Daikin FT25DVM. 9k BTU/hr. Cooling capacity 2.6 kW. Airflow 247 cfm. Sound level 36/29 db(A). Power 815W.

The compressor can only cool two rooms simultaneously. It can cool 3 rooms at 74% efficiency and 4 rooms at 56% efficiency.

Can I change the compressor to an invertor unit keeping everything else? ChatGPT says yes, but the air-con technician says no.

In the end, it turned out that the fan blade shattered into pieces. That explained the exploding sound I heard that night before — I found the air-con was not cold the next morning.

The blade costed $42 new, but there was no stock left. The technician found a 2nd one for $85. And he recommended to change the motor (also 2nd hand) as well for $225. (He insisted on it.) It was plain just changing the blade alone was not profitable for them.

(The motor was still available new for $255, but they would charge a further installation fee of $60 — I called the first air-con shop I found online. Maybe that was not a good idea.)

As they were replacing the parts, I felt that the replacement motor looked older than mine! It also made a low whining sound when in operation.

If the air-con breaks down again, and parts get harder and harder to find, I will need to replace the whole system. It will be a major pain. This air-con system is 14 years old with two breakdowns.

Minimum requirements: inverter, 36k BTU/hr.