Sorry about the delay - tried to get one last camping trip out before 'w'-word decides to settle in for 6 months. Here's what I've done so far (that didn't cost me money) :) - replaced oil (it was all dark, so now it's got fresh oil in there) - cleaned out the jets on the brass bolt. They looked clean, but I used the wire from a wire-tie and poked it through all of the holes (x3). - I checked the spark plug - before, the spark is nice and defined. - I went to the local 'hospital' here in town, and they suggested reseating the coil, so I removed it - cleaned off whatever gunk I could find (grass, bugs, etc) on the coil, and put it back on. Ensured that the rotor was able to rotate w/o hitting the coil, and let her run for a few minutes until manually stopping it. It seemed to be burning a lot of oil Tried to start it up immediately after, and it won't start. I checked for a spark again, and nothing this time around. So...should I try to do the above (I should have reread what was noted by lbgold94 re:cleaning the frame, etc, not just the coil)? Or should I go ahead and get a replacement? (it's 53$ here in Canada - I'm sure I could find it online cheaper, but with shipping probably comes to the same). Once it "cools" down again (45 minutes) I'll go back out and try cleaning the frame where the coil mounts and see if that helps any. Also, how dry should the plug be? I noticed that it had some oil near the gap side, but not enough to short the gap out, at least, I don't think it was shorted - I guess I could test that with an ohmmeter. Thanks again for all the help thus far - I'm definitely learning a lot :)

I wouldn't go there with seedlings--they appreciate temps a bit warmer than fully grown phals. You are right in that growth will be stunted as a direct result of a slower metabolism at lower temps--but the plants would also be subjected to fungal attacks, etc. (Maybe if the plants were grown on the dry side it would help with this?) If you can keep the temps in the 60-80 range, the seedlings will be happy. I wouldn't subject seedlings to a constant 50 degree night temperature. They would do much better if moved from your growing area into a bright kitchen window if you can't at least get up to 80 in the day.

"The last time it acted up i checked and had the 24 volts coming from the thermostat to the board but no voltage from the board to the contactor which is what made me think a pressure switch may be locking the voltage out" I want to be clear about something... When you say "the board", do you mean the control board that sits inside your furnace\blower? If so, that's what I mean as well. That board does a lot of things (including the timed shut-off delay mentioned below) but as far as I know, all it does to turn the condenser unit on or off is sent 24 volts over two lines to the unit, specifically the contactor within the unit. There certainly may be more complicated control systems out there but that's the way traditional A\C systems were set up. In such systems, the control board has absolutely no idea of what any "pressure switch" inside the condenser unit is doing, no idea of whether you have no coolant in the lines, no idea of any sort of problem or situation that might exist within the condensing unit. When that control board wants to turn on the condenser unit, it simply sends 24 volts down those little wires. If you turn your thermostat down far enough to signal that you want the room cooler, the thermostat sends a signal to the control board in the furnace, which then turns the blower on by the coils, and then sends the 24 volts to the condensing unit. If in fact you have "no voltage from the board to the contactor" despite you adjusting the thermostat to start the cooling cycle, then your first concern would be to understand why the board or the wires from the board aren't working properly. If, on the other hand, you mean some sort of control board within the condenser unit itself, one that acts as a second brain (third if you count the thermostat) in the system and takes into account information from within the condenser such as high and low pressure readings before sending the 24 volts along to the contactor, then sure, you might well have an issue with that particular board or the pressure sensors or perhaps a whole bunch of things. Don't know. What I do know is that if you are indeed talking about this sort of internal control within the condenser itself and when you think it should be triggering the contactor but you can't detect any juice between the internal board and the contactor, then your problem isn't the contactor. The only way you can determine whether a contactor is bad is to send 24 volts to it. If you do that but the 220 volt lines within the unit aren't energized, then it's the contactor and indeed, because contactor issues can be all about carbon buildup on the contacts, you might have the symptoms you describe. But if the contactor isn't getting the 24 volts at all, you need to look for another answer. I strongly suggest that you turn this over to a repair tech given that you're no longer talking about replacing a $12 contactor in 15 minutes. Nick in Palm Springs

From your description (draining every once in a while), it sounds like you have a condensate pump. If this is the case, it's most likely due to the pumps inability to pump (motor failure, most likely). The pump probably has a safety feature which will shut the system down to avoid flooding. If there is an access hole, remove the cap and see if it's full of water. If it is, get some tubing and suck it out. Once the float level falls, the a/c should start up. V