North Carolina » Save Energy & Money » Energy & Money Saving Offers » Power Manager® Energy & Money Saving Offers Home Energy House Call What is Power Manager? Power Manager� is a voluntary program that pays you for reducing your air conditioning use during times of high demand for electricity. Sign up for Power Manager or call 888.463.5022 to enroll by phone. Power Manager is currently not available in Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon or Swain counties in North Carolina.Residential time-of-use, Net Metering and Small Customer Generator customers are unable to participate in the Power Manager program. You will receive $32 in bill credits each year for your participation (an $8 credit on your electric bills from July through October). You will help preserve the environment and keep electric costs low by reducing the demand for electricity and delaying the need to build additional power plants in our region. How the Program Works

Duke Energy will install a small device near your central air conditioner's outside unit. Using this device, your air conditioner may be temporarily interrupted for a portion of each half hour during the summer when demand for electricity may reach critical levels.heating air conditioning unit cost Your air conditioner will be turned off and on in coordination with other Power Manager customers to reduce the overall demand for electricity.car ac fan replacement cost Power Manager is an easy way to do something positive for yourself and the environment.mobile home hvac package units To learn more, see the Power Manager FAQs. How to Get Started To sign up for Power Manager, you must: Be a Duke Energy residential customer.

Own your single-family home. Have a functional central air conditioning unit with an outside compressor. There are two ways to sign up for Power Manager: Call us at 888.463.5022 to enroll by phone. Enroll online using our Power Manager Enrollment Form General Information about Power Manager If you are enrolled in Duke Energy�s Power Manager Program, you are one of 260,000 customers who help reduce power use when it�s needed most in our communities. During these cycling times, customers often ask for more details on the program and for air conditioning tips. Here is some information you can print and keep for future reference. If you have any questions about Duke Energy�s Power Manager Program call 877.392.4848 to speak to a representative. For cycling event information, please call 800.832.3169. During a Power Manager cycling event, it is normal for the home to gain a few degrees in temperature. The temperature increase will depend on many variables — the outside temperature, the size of your air

conditioner, sunlight coming through windows and the length of the cycling event. After the cycling period ends, your air conditioner may run continuously until your home reaches your thermostat temperature. Power Manager Tips to Keep Cool on a Hot Day Keeping cool and comfortable in the summer and watching your electricity usage can be a challenge. Here are some tips to help keep your home comfortable, not only during a cycling event, but during the hot days of the summer. Keep your curtains and blinds fully closed on the sunny side of the home. Especially if you know you are going to be away from home and the forecast calls for hot weather, close all your window coverings for the entire day. Many air conditioners are sized large enough to cool when the curtains are open. you close the curtains, you have �extra� cooling capacity and the air conditioner does not need to run as often to keep your home comfortable. Minimize door traffic to the outside.

The outside air is not only hot, it�s also very humid. can add extra load on your air conditioning, causing your bill to increase. Ceiling fans and other air circulating fans can improve your comfort. New energy efficient fans are best as they produce less heat. Whenever the home is closed for air conditioning, do not use the large, wholeThese fans cause inside, conditioned air to be replaced by outside, humid air. If you know your air conditioner is being cycled, postpone activities that add heat and/or extra moisture to your indoor air. Examples of heat sources are unnecessary lighting, ironing or baking. Running the clothes dryer may reduce your comfort in two ways — it produces unwanted heat and when it exhausts air to the outside, this causes the home to draw in make-up air which is warm and humid. Other sources of moisture are cooking, canning fruits and vegetables or taking a shower or bath. Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) use much less electricity and produce much less heat than

Insulate your air conditioning and heating ducts. This is a very important energy saving measure for any home where the duct-work is not inside the insulated shell. Air conditioning ducts located in an attic need the most attention. Ducts exposed to extreme attic temperatures can add 10 to 40 percent to you heating and cooling load and your costs. These ducts should be completely buried in attic insulation or wrapped with at least six inches of insulation. NC Power Manager Regulations (pdf, 17 KB) Please choose your stateAre you an equipment owner with a question about air conditioning troubleshooting? page has some guidance that might help you get your air conditioner running. If you're working on a Trane unit, our page about troubleshooting Trane air conditioning controls has some tips about Trane's microprocessor controls that you might find useful. Are you a technician doing some air conditioning troubleshooting on a totally dead unit?

Is it a nice hot summer day? Are your shoe soles already gummy from a previous service call on somebody's unit on a tar-paper roof? Did you just finish a service call 20 minutes ago where you were sweating buckets wriggling around in somebody's steam-kettle attic? If you're done with your diet soda; grab your tools, crank up the can-do attitude, and let's go troubleshoot this air conditioner. This unit's acting dead, so check the breaker, check the disconnect and fuses, and check to make sure you have correct power supplied to the unit. If the breaker is tripped and/or a fuse is blown, check the unit for grounds or shorts. Disconnect the leads from the terminals and check for grounded, shorted, or open windings. Check the evaporator and condenser fan motors for grounded or shorted windings. Check the control and power circuits for shorts or grounds. If your air conditioning troubleshooting call is for a unit that has good supply voltage but is otherwise dead:

If your supply power checks out ok, make sure the thermostat is turned on, that there is control power to it, and verify that it actually works. If there's control power to the thermostat and it works, make sure the wires to the evap fan relay and condensing unit aren't broken at the thermostat, or somewhere between the thermostat and the Air conditioning troubleshooting when the evaporator fan won't run.Check for power at the evap fan relay.If it gets power but the contacts don't close, it has failed.If it gets power and the contacts close, but the fan doesn't run,Check for voltage on the load side of the relay, check the leads to the fan, test the fan windings and the capacitor, and check to see if something is stuck in the blower and stopping it from turning. Air conditioning troubleshooting when the Verify the cooling control signal from the thermostat. Check for refrigerant pressure. If the refrigerant has leaked, the low pressure safety will open and the unit will not run.

If the oil safety switch has tripped, check the oil level. It will also trip if the contactor closes but the compressor doesn't run for some reason, So check for open compressor windings, verify that the compressor terminal connections and contactor connections are tight, and verify that there is actually good voltage at the compressor when the contactor pulls in. If the high pressure safety is open, check your pressures. If head pressure has dropped below the cut in point of the safety, and it is an automatic reset type, the safety has failed. If the safety is a manual reset type, push the button and see if it will reset. Check the voltage monitor if there is one. If your voltage is within range of the setting, the safety contacts should be closed. If they're not, the monitor has failed. If there is a delay timer, check accross the control terminals. If the delay timer contacts never close, it has failed. If the safety contacts are closed, you should have control power at your contactor.

If there is no control power at the contactor coil, check for a broken wire somewhere. If you have control power at the contactor coil but the contactor doesn't pull in, the contactor has failed. page for contactor troubleshooting tips. If you're on an air conditioning troubleshooting call where the contactor pulls in but the compressor doesn't run, check for open compressor windings, verify that the compressor terminal connections and contactor connections are tight, and verify that there is actually good voltage at the compressor when the contactor pulls in. If it's a single phase compressor, check the start relay and the capacitors. The best way to test the start relay and capacitors is to replace them with new parts. If the condenser fan doesn't run, check the relay, motor windings and capacitor, and fan blade, the same way as with the evaporator fan. Be thorough as you trace down wiring and look for failed components, and always follow safety precautions during your air conditioning troubleshooting jobs.

By the time you reach this point of air conditioning troubleshooting, you will have found the failed component and repaired or replaced it, and the unit will be ready to run. For a few more tips on condensing unit troubleshooting, and some unusual condensing unit problems I've run into, see our Troubleshoot Air Conditioning Condensing Unit Air conditioning troubleshooting on a unit that runs but doesn't seem to be cooling efficiently. Check the evaporator and condenser fans. Verify the motors are the correct horsepower, that they rotate in the proper direction and at the correct rpm. Verify that the fan and blower blades are clean, that they're the correct size and pitch, and that they are turning in the right direction. Verify that the evaporator and condenser coils are clean and air flow is not blocked. Verify that the air filter is clean. Verify that the condenser is getting normal temperature outside air, and that another unit isn't blowing hot air into it.

Verify that the evaporator supply and return ducting is not leaking; losing cold air or picking up warm outside air. At this point in this air conditioning troubleshooting job, attatch your gauges and check your pressures and temperatures. Before we get started though, in case you're interested, on our Air Conditioning Manifold Gauges page I discuss a couple of my favorite brands of manifold sets. With the unit off and pressures equalized, verify that the system contains the correct refrigerant. You can do this by taking the temperature of the evaporator coil. It should match the pressure/temperature indication on your low side gauge or pressure/temperature chart. Run the unit and check operating pressures. When the space has cooled down and is about 5 degrees above design temperature, look for the following pressures and temperatures. Suction pressure should be in the range of 35 to 40 degrees below return air. Discharge pressure should be in the range of 20 to 35 degrees above ambient air.

Superheat should be 20 to 30 degrees at the compressor. Subcooling should be 10 to 15 degrees at the outlet of the receiver or condenser. Air temperature rise through the condenser should be 20 to 30 degrees. Air temperature drop through the evaporator should be 15 to 20 degrees. If all of your operating characteristics fall within these ranges, the unit is running good. If you're interested in more air conditioning troubleshooting tips, you might want to take a look at our They have troubleshooting diagrams, and more detailed information about how to evaluate direct expansion and chilled water type air conditioning and refrigeration system operating characteristics. At this stage of air conditioning troubleshooting, if there is still a concern about the unit not cooling properly, you will need to do a capacity check.Measure the air flow in CFM through the evaporator.Measure the wet bulb temperatures of the air entering and leaving the evaporator.Using a psychrometric chart or an enthalpy conversion table, convert the wet bulb temperatures to enthalpy values, and calculate the difference between the two values.

Multiply the difference in enthalpy values times 4.5, which is a constant used in this calculation, and then multiply that product times the CFM.This will tell you how many btu of heat the evaporator is absorbing from the air flowing through it.Yes, air conditioning troubleshooting often involves some mathematics. If the difference between design capacity and running capacity is minor, it can be adjusted by adjusting evaporator blower speed. If the unit is running at or near design capacity but still not handling the load of the space being cooled, the unit is simply too small. I hope this page has provided some useful tips about air conditioning troubleshooting, and please, feel free to contact us with any specific HVAC questions you might have, including questions about air conditioning on Guam, or refrigeration on Guam. Are you learning the HVAC Trade "on the job"? Return from Air Conditioning Troubleshooting to the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Guide home page.