Bridge A/C compressor freezing

[bmac]

Every time I've run the bridge air conditioner this season the compressor has frozen over. I had this happen a few times last year but it usually occurred over night or when I left the A/C running for an extended period. Has anyone experienced this or know what the cause is or how to prevent it from happening? I'm getting tired of having to manually defrost it and don't want to cause any damage. Any help is appreciated.

 

[WDCboater]

Every time I've run the bridge air conditioner this season the compressor has frozen over. I had this happen a few times last year but it usually occurred over night or when I left the A/C running for an extended period. Has anyone experienced this or know what the cause is or how to prevent it from happening? I'm getting tired of having to manually defrost it and don't want to cause any damage. Any help is appreciated.

My AC is doing the same thing right now. Dealer is coming to look at it this week. It did it last summer too and they had to replace a sensor. They will be looking to see if there's another issue with it. I'll report what they find.

Also, make sure your air filters aren't clogged. This can cause this problem.

By the way, if you turn on the heat it melts the ice fairly fast.

 

[ZZ13]

I know at home when this freezing happened it was because coolant was low. Turned out to be a very slow leak.

 

[carterchapman]

Low coolant or a dirty filter. Did you have any codes - like LO PS or HI PS? My 340 froze over the first month that I had it - dealer told me it was fully serviced, and when I checked the filter, it was clogged - and the unit was a block of ice!

 

[WDCboater]

I know at home when this freezing happened it was because coolant was low. Turned out to be a very slow leak.

This happened to us last summer as well. We were low on coolant and had a bad sensor. Forgot to mention this.

The key is to figure out why and where it's leaking.

 

[bmac]

Thanks all. The filter is clean and I have no fault messages. I have a feeling the thermocouple may be resting against the coils as I had a reading of 43 degrees when the bridge was about 75. I have to remove a seat cushion and access panel to get to the front of the unit before I can see it. If that's not it I'll have to call for service.

 

[mquiet]

Sounds like you might know the issue, but low coolant will freeze up the unit. Slow leaks are difficult to find. Good luck with fix, let us know.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rich122]

If you aren't getting a HiPs (high Pres) code (low water flow) it could be you have the setting to cold (or hot) and if the unit doesn't cycle it will freeze. i found adjusting the temp setting will allow the unit to cycle off long enough for the coils to defrost

Rich

 

[WDCboater]

Follow up to my earlier post. Dealer found two issues with my compressor. Temperature sensor is bad (again) and the circuit board needs to be replaced.

My unit was freezing up, but I wasn't getting an error codes. Tech said coolant wasn't an issue this time.

 

[Bresco]

We have this problem when the water itself is cold. We are asking the heat exchangers to work overtime converting the cold water to produce heat. The only time our A/C froze over was when the filters were clogged.

 

[bmac]

So I had my A/C expert (Robski) take a look last weekend. He found nothing wrong but suspects I had the set point too low not allowing the unit to cycle. He also thought low sea water temp could contribute to the problem. Since raising the set point from 70 to 72 the compressor has not frozen over again. Sea water temp is also up 4-6 degrees since the problem started, so I'm not sure exactly what the fix was but I'll continue to fiddle with it.