Older heat pump blowing out air that is too cold

[Dennis S]

It's a 20-year-old 3.5 ton Lennox. I've noticed the air is colder that normal; almost uncomfortably so. I'm afraid that might indicate something bad.

[Rolando]

Dennis S wrote:
It's a 20-year-old 3.5 ton Lennox. I've noticed the air is colder that normal; almost uncomfortably so. I'm afraid that might indicate something bad.

Just to be clear, do you want cold air, and its too cold, or do you want warm air and its not warm enough?

[Dennis S]

I want cold air but it's is lots colder than it ever has been and the outside temperature hasn't changed.

[Speedy]

Set your thermostat to a higher temperature. The days are getting shorter so probably your air conditioner is finally keeping up.

[Rolando]

Is the outdoor unit wet? Wetting the coils really improves cooling as well.

[Dennis S]

Rolando wrote:
Is the outdoor unit wet? Wetting the coils really improves cooling as well.

No. I think what Speedy said is probably right. I was afraid it meant something was about to go wrong.

[Grateful11]

That's kind of an unusual problem. Regardless of the temp of the air coming out of the registers just set your thermostat to what you want and let it ride. Ours was almost 3 lbs. low on freon at the beginning of AC season and our awesome neighbor that owns his own HVAC business topped it off and tried to find the leak but hasn't had any luck. The inside coil was freezing up because it was low on freon and completely blocking any airflow.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Does the evaporator coil (cooling coil inside) freeze up? Even if it is not freezing, much colder temps could indicate that some refrigerant has leaked out.

The bad news is that assuming they have a stock of it (and that it is still legal to charge old units) R-22 will be very expensive to recharge. Retrofit with R-421A after finding the leak might be possible.

[Dennis S]

It has never frozen up. I noticed the extra cold air when the sun went down and the outside temperature was down around 75 degrees, so maybe Speedy's theory is correct. I'll see what it does tomorrow around 90 degrees.

[modelamac]

The only thing that might indicate is the outdoor unit might benefit from cleaning the coils. It may now be cooling the air like it should have all along, but could not because of dirty coils (poor airflow through the outdoor unit).