Anyone know about central air?

[moonstation 2000]

My dad installed a central air system maybe 15 years ago. It's always worked fine although he could never get the heat pump to work, just the AC.

Well, now the place is mine and I did some renovations and relocated the thermostat to another wall. During the process I thought I wrecked the thermostat by getting wet wallpaper and water all over it due to having to remove old wallpaper from the walls, so I got a new thermostat. When I hooked it up and turned on the system I got WARM air but no cold, the opposite of how it's worked all these years.

Then I realized that the thermostat that I ruined with wet wallpaper was a spare, so I hooked up the original. Now I get nothing. Hooked back up the first one I tried and again nothing.

It's a five wire system with heating and cooling. I don't even get power to the thermostat. I have flipped the breaker but no use. Seems like I must have shorted out something? Anyone know about AC units?

I can't ask my Dad as he's 76 now and doesn't have the mind for it, if he ever did...

Btw, the unit is a Goodman model cpke60-1a if that helps.

[Rockhead261]

1. You need to be sure you are using a heatpump thermostat. Most heatpumps require the changeover solenoid (O on the subbase) to be energized for cooling. This is a fail-safe design, so that if the solenoid coil fails, you still have heat. Some others are backwards and utilize the 'B' subbase terminal to energize for cooling. Either way, you need to have a heatpump-specific thermostat. Most generic heat/cool stats will not work.

2. It certainly sounds like you lost the control circuit. With any luck there is a fuse for the control transformer or board. It will be located somewhere in the indoor unit (fancoil or furnace). If not, you're probably looking at replacing a transformer.

3. Though you have 5 wires, all 5 are not necessarily needed. You can wire a heatpump to operate with as little as 4 while some multistage, emergency heat unit need up to 10. BE SURE what you have in front of you before you start connecting wires.

4. To make matters worse, some manufacturers (Trane, for example) have used their own nomenclature for thermostat terminal indentification. Just when you think you've got it figured out you have to unlearn and start over.

Good luck.

[moonstation 2000]

Forgive me if this is a very stupid question, but with my furnace I can take the red and white wires, touch them together, and this turns on the furnace.

Any such correlation with a AC/heat pump?

[Rockhead261]

Forgive me if this is a very stupid question, but with my furnace I can take the red and white wires, touch them together, and this turns on the furnace.

Any such correlation with a AC/heat pump?

Forgive me, but please do yourself and your equipment a favor and call in a pro. You can quickly destroy pricey control boards by jumping wires in the dark. Colors mean NOTHING in the wonderful world of field-installed control wiring.

[moonstation 2000]

Thanks for the help Rockhead.

I finally got a chance to open the unit up today, and it looks like a blown transformer. Going to order a new one and get this thing running again...

[BigTimBigTurbo]

Forgive me, but please do yourself and your equipment a favor and call in a pro. You can quickly destroy pricey control boards by jumping wires in the dark. Colors mean NOTHING in the wonderful world of field-installed control wiring.

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