We had a brand new Kelvinator 5-ton central AC installed in our home just over a month ago. It worked fine for 2 weeks but started blowing hot air or *room temperature* air one day. After turning it off and on several times it started blowing cold air again, but days later...it was *broken* for good and would only blow hot air. I went outside to check the fusebox by the condenser and found most of the insides of it MELTED...wires/fuses/switch/connectors. I hired an electrician to come out and replace the fusebox and he noticed that the wires were only 10g which was definitely not enough to carry the amount amps needed for the unit. He also noticed that condenser was located roughly 80 feet away from the electric panel meaning a very far run so there was definitely a big voltage drop. He measured the drop to be from 220 207 over the wire run after upgrading the wires to 8g. The breaker being used is a 50-amp, with 50-amp fuses. The rated max is 50amps for the condenser. All seemed well but the fuses still blew so we got an AC supposed-expert to come out. He said the reason why the unit worked for 2 weeks at first was because the temperature wasn't that hot outside until recently. (we live in Los Angeles, CA) He immediately noticed that the condenser was not blowing hot air and that the 2 copper lines felt the same. He explained that the bigger insulated copper pipe should be COLD while the smaller copper line should feel warm or hot. He also explained that the condenser should normally blow hot air if the AC was on. He said that there might be a freeon leak somewhere. He looked around briefly but didn't see any, he put 4 pounds of freeon into the condenser and said that it looks like the AC guys that installed the unit didn't put any freeon into the lines. All seemed well but the unit blew another fuse after 1 day. I called ANOTHER AC expert today who claims that the problem has nothing to do with the freeon. He said that there was most likely "air" in the unit and that it needed to be vacuumed out and re-charged. I read on yahoo answers and found mention of a hard-start kit and wondered if that might be what I need. Someone please help me and give me some good advice and what to look for. I'm tired of spending more and more money for a brand new system that doesn't work. Thanks for all your help! I cannot call back the original installers because we withheld partial payment from them. They are not returning phone calls and they don't want the rest of the money. Likewise, we are not interested in having them go near the unit anymore. Please give me some directions on what to do and how to go about finding the problem or finding a good AC expert (I am in the Los Angeles /SFV county area)...THANK YOU! Does anybody know the contact # for Kelvinator AC? I can't find their website.
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