No power to outside AC

[SBpropertiesGA]

i bought a house that I am in process of renovating. The AC was working up until a few days ago. Now, the inside fan blows air but the outside unit will not kick on.
From reading other posts, I decided to test the contactor. Pulled the panel with breaker & system on. But I'm not getting 220 volts anywhere. Pulled the disconnect. It does not contain any fuses. I also checked with a meter at that point, there is no power coming to the disconnect.
Where should I look next? Does the power go thru the inside unit before coming to the AC? Are there fuses somewhere else? Breaker in the main box is not tripped.

 

[Jadnashua]

Usually, the only input from the furnace or air handler to the outside compressor unit is the Y line that pulls in the contactor that causes it to turn on (well, the return from the low-voltage transformer as well)...it gets its power, usually from a subpanel or switch, that is fed from your main panel and is usually 240vac, so there's L1, L2, and the safety ground going into the compressor unit and two low-voltage control signals.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[WorthFlorida]

Check the voltage at the panel and cycle the breaker to be sure that it is on. At the condenser check voltage from L1 to ground and then L2 to ground. Each should read ~120v. Of course ~240v between them.

Your typical split system has two sets of 220v breakers. One for the air handler (fan motor and optional strip heater) and the second set for the condenser unit. The compressor is 220 v and the fan motor for the compressor can be 120v but usually 220v. Disconnect switches are required by code and they are a switch and you pull a bar out to open the circuit. Older units will have a switch that looks like a breaker but they are a switch only. There should be nothing else. As Jim mention there is a thermostat wire between the two units and it is 24v ac to operate the contactor. Many power companies, for a discount on your electric bill, install a load controller. Should a grid overload occur the power company will active the load controller and open the wire from to the contactor so the compressor is powered off.

 

[SBpropertiesGA]

Thanks for the help! My problem turned out to be that the breakers were labeled wrong. The AC was on the one labeled for water heater. I turned that one off, because the water is turned off at the meter. Odd, the house is 20 years old and nobody had caught the mislabeling before. I had the rest double-checked, and the dishwasher was labeled wrong too.
Good news is there's nothing wrong with my AC. I'm just hoping there was enough water in the tank that I don't have a burned element, since it has been on the whole time.

 

[Jadnashua]

If you have hot water, you probably didn't burn out an element. The top one would be the most likely to have failed, and it needs to run before the lower one can come on in most layouts. IOW, if the upper element was bad, you might not get any hot water. Some turn them both on at the same time, but there aren't as many of them as the alternating element setup.