its been running ON for 3 hours now, and its 68 degrees in my apartment, its 58 outside.' the maintenance guy just came by with it still running, and put his hand to the register, and said "yea, thats not very warm, but it taks a while for things to warm up.. I told him it has been running for 3 hours and he just shrugged his shoulders..' i told him that the last guy (the other maintenance guy, there are 2 of them) didnt use any gauges when he "topped off" the refrigerant.. and asked "cant you overcharge the system?" he told me flatly NO.. after sitting there and feeling the heat he went and got a thermometer out of his truck and stuck it in the regester and ot read 90 degrees.. he said "shoot, 90 degrees coming out of there, thats great!" im no expert, but 90 degrees after running for 3 hours on EMERGENCY heat, doesent strike me as "great" then, he tells me "come monday, ill put you in a new thermostat.. HOW THE HELL does that help!! I put a brand new one on (which he doesnt believe has emergency heat despite me showing him the wiring and everything) and it had this problem, i put the original back on and it does the same exact thing.. IT IS NOT THE THERMOSTAT! even i can see that.

A hardstart kit will not resolve your issue. It would help minimize the initial surge during start-up but, I think you said this "brown out" happens only while the unit is in cycle. What amp service service do you have? Do your neighbors experience a dimming of lights when your A/C starts or is running?

I got it working! Funny story.... At dovetails' suggestion, I contacted Trane Canada. It wasn't clear on their website whom the appropriate contact would be, so I emailed the service manager for the Northwest. He called me back immediately. Said he was actually with the Commercial division but thought he could help me. I told him the thermostat was fine but he had me check it anyway. It is fine. I told him my husband checked the circuit breaker and it is fine. He had me check it anyway. It didn't look tripped but I switched it off and on anyway. I go outside.....and hear the sweet, sweet sound of my compressor working! I'm going to razz my husband -my engineer husband - real bad when he gets home to this lovely cool house on this 30 degree scorcher day. To be fair, I didn't think to check it and switch it off and on myself. The Trane guy said sometimes when it's tripped the switch barely moves and you can't tell just by looking. I learned a new skill today. Thanks for all your input and to dovetails for suggesting contacting the manufacturer directly. Unfortunately my neighbour will be most unhappy about this development. He harassed me all last summer over the noise from the compressor (I believe ours is one of the quieter models) and it is below the city bylaw for daytime use. I got to know my bylaw officers very well last summer. Fortunately they realize he is the unreasonable one. Every time I turned on AC he would park his lawnmower or some loud power tool beside his fence and run it without using it. It was always many decibels louder than my AC. He has kicked around a bag of glass bottles? slammed his garage door repeatedly, anything to create a disturbance. He's yelled at me to "shut that F...ing thing off!" He's unsuccessfully tried to engage other neighbours in his campaign. One time he flashed a bright spotlight on my bedroom window. He's been defiant with Bylaw that if I can use my AC, he can make whatever noise he wants. They appear to little clout to stop him. They wanted to lay a charge against him and take him to court. Then the city attorney called me and said he wouldn't waste resources taking to court a "dispute between two neighbours" as though I have done something wrong too. This neighbour has done all of this being well aware that my AC was prescribed by neurologist as a medical device due to the debilitating effects of heat on my multiple sclerosis. Here we go....... Thanks again everyone!

Extremely unlikely because as the guy said... eventually the unit starts and runs fine. Voltage drop = no run. "If voltage drop occurred while unit was running... it would not stay running." No where does OP say anything about unit cutting out while after starting and running. You have to know what you are talking about to come to such conclusions. LOL. Does a car keep running if there is no gas? Can a car be hard to start, but then run fine once started? Yeah ok, common sense. While a car is a poor comparison more people understand the operation of a car than anything else I could use as an example. voltage drops tend to stay, not magically disappear and reappear. But thanks for playing.... In over 22 years of diagnosing only 1 voltage drop problem... if you have a voltage drop you will know it quite easily. (More complex problems in regards to start up? Uh no. Guess again and again and again.) More common to drop a leg from the pole... while also rare that's happened about half dozen times in 22 years of running service. Central AC Unit won't start with only 120v available, that confuses people because some things inside the house will still operate normally as long as it doesn't require the full 240v to operate. In Vegas, they give you odds... in a forum board that's also what I give. Magic 8 ball --- out.