Electronic Portable Air Conditioner

When I turn on my air conditioner window unit, it just hums; what is the problem?

Sunday morning my 3 year old granddaughter was over at my house. I was in the other room and I heard her turning the window unit off and on and off and on and high and low and off and on. I kept yelling for her to stop it and she finally did. That evening I got home and turned on the window air conditioner and it just makes a loud humming noise. It will not work any more. Is there a reset button or something? What is the problem? She just flipped it on and off a lot. This is a 220 volt unit. Of course it is very heavy. When I turn on the window unit it hums for about 3 seconds then it stops humming. Nothing else happens, including no air is blowing out in those 3 seconds. I have checked the voltage in the wall outlet and it reads 220 volts. I reached in and spined the blower, and it spins very easily, not stuck at all. (I spun the blower by hand when it was unpluged) It has not yet spun on its own sense my granddaughter destroyed it.

Public Comments

1. It's broke.
2. The humming is probably the compressor running. The fan that blows the cooled air out isn't working. She may have damaged the switch for the fan. It's still a good unit if you can get the fan to run. If you are handy with tools you could take the switch out and replace it or throw it away and wire it direct then you would have to unplug it to shut it off or you could take it to some one who knows how to fix it.
3. Small children do things we don't always see. Sounds like the compressor is working but the blower fan is not putting out anything. Take off the front and see if they put a pencil or pen into the blower fan. While the unit is off...reach back in there and see if you find anything....while you are there...try to spin the blower with your fingers. If it doesn't move...either fan is locked up from something or your motor has burned out. Sometimes if it's a small light weight unit...you can pull it out onto inside of your house....turn it upside down and see if anything falls out. Don't leave it upside down very long...it's bad for it. Try turning the fan blade that blows air onto condenser coils at back. It usually powers the same blower shaft that is on inside fan.
4. If it's a 220 VOLT unit (USA), you might have tripped one of the circuit breakers and it is trying to operate on 110 volts. This is called single phasing and the unit will just hum. If left on like this too long it will burn out the compressor. Check the fuse or circuit breaker panel. There should be either two breakers or fuses for the air conditioner circuit. Sometimes the A/C circuit has a two pole breaker, one handle that is connected to two breakers. Turn the breakers OFF, then back to ON. this will reset them. If you have fuses, check for blown fuses. If you repeatedly turn the A/C unit off and on, it will trip the breaker or blow the fuse.
5. fan is not turning