Marlene’s air conditioning unit failed on Thursday which just happened to be the hottest day of the year so far (isn’t that always the way it works?). I went over to her place Thursday night and tried to diagnose the problem. Turning the unit off, waiting a bit, then turning it back on – which had “fixed” the problem in the past – did not fix it this time. The symptom was the unit would start when the electricity was turned on, but would shut off after about 2 seconds.
We slept Thursday night with no air conditioning. The inside temperature dropped from 89 to 84 by morning and we actually slept well with the lanai door wide open and a couple of fans running. But it was imperative that the problem be fixed on Friday as we were leaving for a week on Saturday (more on that later). So I took the cover off and, for the first time in my life, looked into the guts of a big AC unit. It was simpler than I expected. A large radiator and fan, a small compressor and a covered box of electronics. When I took the cover off of the box I was pleasantly surprised to discover a digital error display – “06′. A guide on the inside of the box said that “06” indicated a faulty run capacitor. As I had no idea what a run capacitor was, I had to research it a bit more. Fortunately there is this thing called Google. And YouTube.
We agreed that one of the capacitors – there were two – was probably the culprit. One had been replaced relatively recently, about 2 years ago. The other was much older and may have been original with the 15-year-old unit. It was likely that the old one was the problem. But we found prices for the two and they were cheap so decided that getting replacements for both was a good idea. So we found an HVAC parts supplier in town and I went over there Friday around noontime. They had to search for a replacement for the old one but did eventually find both. Total cost: under $19.
I took both to Marlene’s house, noted the placement of wires on the old capacitor and carefully removed them and installed them in the same location on the new capacitor. Then I popped out the old one, slid the new one into place, crossed my fingers and turned the power back on. The AC started right up!
It took most of the day to get the house down from 89 to 79 degrees, but it did it. We slept well that night.
So a repair that probably would have cost over $200 if a certified HVAC repair guy had been called ended up costing less than $20 when done by me, a self-proclaimed HVAC apprentice.
I am walking tall.