This is frustrating. The heat is rising outside, and you need your house cooled down. You go to the thermostat, make whatever adjustments are needed to get the air conditioner running—and then nothing happens. Or whatever happens doesn’t result in the comfortable house you expected.
The unresponsive thermostat often requires calling for AC repair in Houston, TX. Even the most basic manual slider thermostats cannot be repaired with DIY techniques or amateur tinkering. It’s not only that thermostats are too complicated to fix; it’s that the problem may not actually be the thermostat but located elsewhere in the HVAC system. A huge part of professional air conditioning repair is diagnosing what’s wrong—and you can’t get that from amateurs or a “do-it-yourself” YouTube video.
So What Might Be Wrong With the Thermostat?
Let’s break this down by first considering what might be going wrong with the thermostat itself. As we mentioned above, thermostats are complex devices, and the current crop of Wi-Fi and smart thermostats are intricate, precision pieces of computer equipment. A few things may go wrong that cause a thermostat to turn unresponsive:
- Loss of direct connection to the air handler or compressor. There are separate wires from the thermostat to the parts of the air conditioner, and if one of them frays or breaks, the AC may not turn on (or may not turn off).
- The thermostat has become miscalibrated, which means it’s reading incorrect temperature settings in the house. You may put in a target temperature, but the thermostat will falsely register that it’s already reached that temperature.
- The software in the thermostat has malfunctioned. This can occur with digital and programmable thermostats.
- The thermostat is mismatched with the HVAC system. If the thermostat is a new one that you tried to install yourself, it may be the wrong kind of thermostat. This is why it’s vital to rely on professionals for new thermostat installation.
What Else Might Be Causing the Problem?
The thermostat may only appear to have failed. The problem may be elsewhere in the HVAC system.
- The air conditioner’s limit switch has tripped. If the condensate pan in the air conditioner overflows because of a clogged drain or a broken pump, it will automatically shut down the air conditioner. If you find the digital thermostat’s screen has gone blank, this may be the problem.
- The air conditioner has lost power because of a tripped circuit breaker. An overload of power on the blower can or the condenser can trip a circuit breaker and lead to the AC failing to turn on. Make sure to check on the electrical panel to see if this is the case whenever the air conditioner won’t respond.
- A motor has burnt out. The thermostat sends signals to the motors that run the fans and the compressor in the AC. If the motors burn out, the air conditioner will fail to operate at the request of the thermostat.
No matter the trouble, you can trust to our team of AC professionals to find out what’s wrong and get your cooling system back to work.
Your comfort is our business! Call AC Comfort when you need your air conditioning problems solved, fast and right.