Heat Pump Repair in Unicoi, TN Kept an Old R22 HVAC Unit in Service for Our Customer

We received a call from a customer in need of a heat pump repair in Unicoi, TN on their older R22 Goodman heat pump. They stated that they started hearing a terrible noise from their HVAC unit while watching television. They said it sounded like metal on metal or nails going across a chalkboard. They said that they immediately turned the system off when it first happened.

When we arrived, we went into the unfinished basement where the indoor air handler was located and opened the indoor unit up. We turned off high voltage to the indoor unit and we felt the blower wheel with our hands and could tell that it didn’t feel right. We used an inspection mirror to look at the wheel and could see that the blower motor wheel had come apart. We disconnected the blower motor from its electrical connections and pulled the blower motor housing from the air handler to fully inspect it. The wheel had completely come apart in the housing and this type of failure is more common than you might think. Typically, we see this type of failure on newer units versus older units though.

After contacting several Goodman supply houses, we were able to find one that had the blower wheel in stock. We also made sure that we had a compatible blower motor and capacitor on our van just in case the blower motor was damaged when the wheel came apart. We let the customer know pricing on the blower wheel replacement and warned them that we might have to replace the blower motor and capacitor as well if there was damage to the motor when the wheel came apart. We provided pricing on the blower motor and capacitor replacement as well. The customer authorized the repairs and we went to the supply house to pick up the wheel.

We immediately returned to the home and removed the old shattered wheel from the blower motor shaft and housing. We cleaned the blower housing and installed the new wheel. We inspected the electric heat strips since the blower housing was out and they looked intact. We did a test spin of the wheel by hand and it appeared that the shaft was spinning true on the motor and we didn’t feel any resistance. We tested the blower motor capacitor as well and it tested in range. We installed the blower housing back into place and wired the blower motor back up. We restored high voltage to the indoor air handler, hooked up an amp clamp on the blower motor, and set the thermostat to the fan on position. The blower motor started and was spinning without any issues and the amp draw on the blower motor was in range as well. We put the thermostat back to the fan auto position and confirmed that the blower motor turned off after the time delay. We restored the cooling call to the heat pump and confirmed that the blower motor was working as it should.

The unit was back cooling again and we hooked up probes to the system to monitor its performance and everything checked out in range. Superheat was on target, we had a good temperature split between return and supply air, and our pressures and temperatures were in range as well. We offered some additional services while we were there like cleaning the outdoor coil, cleaning the condensate pump and drain line, and checking the dual run capacitor on the outdoor unit, but the customer opted to call it good since the unit was cooling again. We are not the pushy salesmen type in white dress shirts, so we packed up our stuff and wrote up the bill. We will provide you with the facts and you can make the decision on what you do and don’t want done on your HVAC unit.

If you reside within our service area of Northeast Tennessee and are in need of a heat pump repair, please feel free to contact us. We would be happy to get your system back up and running again. Best wishes and stay safe.

Location: Unicoi, TN