My AC worked great for first couple of years when I bought my house but started staying on longer about 2 years ago. Had local ac repair come and check it and said nothing wrong all ok. This year I decided to have it checked out by another company. First guy said outside coil very dirty and so he cleaned it. He still thought something was wrong so he said freon overfilled and removed some of it. AC still ran for a long time even when cold outside so I called them back and thy sent out another guy. This time he said ev coil very very dirty and freon low. He cleaned it, put freon back in unit but said if this does not do it , I may need a new ev coil. Well it does seem someone better . Some rooms get nice and cool but the hall where thermostat resides is warmer so until still stays on for good while.

When this problem first started I tried changing out the thermostat but the new one (A so called "programmable" unit by Hunter) is even worse because it insists on running 1-2 degrees colder than your setting so it runs even longer and it wastes $$$ rather than saving it. For the time being I would like to rigg up a timer so the hunter can't keep the system running for hours on end. Something that would let me set it for say 30 min max then override the Hunter and keep the system off for 30 min. Something that would force the system to cycle.

In the meantime I bought a 12k window unit that will cycle like it should so when It gets hot my old cat not will die of a heat stroke. Anyone know of a way to do is or a programmable thermostat that is truly programmable by the end user?

Thanks!