Public Service Annoucement

Its funny how we take our modern conveniences for granted. Electricity, indoor plumbing, Wi-Fi, DVR (top five of any invention ever) and A/C have become perks that we cannot live without. Especially when say, the A/C goes out on a 90  and it’s humid outside. Then you can really see what lack of air conditioning does to a person.

We were sitting in the living room just goofing off, when Mandy commented how hot our house was. I immediately passed it off as, it’s humid get over but she insisted it was hot. The A/C was going but the air was a little bit warmer than usual. The thermostat was set to away so I figured it would take a while to cool back down. After ignoring the problem while Alex and I finished playing FIFA13, Mandy did her own investigating. Yes, the A/C was pushing air but the compressor outside was not going. Crap.

I took off the side of the unit and discovered that one of the wires going into the contactor was burned back and melted a little bit.

 I turned off the power, pulled out the disconnect and cleaned up the wire as best I could. Nope still wouldn’t work. Ok, the contactor is bad. Well I work at an electrical distributor, we should have one. Nope, we don’t stock this type. At this point Mandy and the boys are getting ornery and hot because I think I can fix this. As a guy we think we can fix anything and save us some money. Well, with the temps getting above 90  and the humidity building up, it was time to call in reinforcements.

We called Bills Comfort System and Layton, and the gentlemen offered to sell me just the contactor to install myself. Great that is something I can do. I can fix this. However, I (by “I” I mean Mandy) decided this was too big of deal to try and fix myself, so I asked the technician to come out today to look at it. The tech was here in 30minutes took one look at it and said, “Your capacitor is bad.” Great just what I thought, the contactor was bad. Wait, he said capacitor, not contactor. Crap. Double crap. Not only was I wrong (shocking) but he said, “Well, the capacitor is bad and that is an unusual type. I don’t think I have one of those on the truck.” Are you serious? Well, he went and looked and he ended up having one, thank goodness.

After another 20 minutes, with my pride hurt and wallet a little lighter, the air conditioning was fixed. I always try to see the good in a situation like this, to learn a little something from a life situation. Yesterday I learned that I am not always right(again shocking) and it’s hard to admit defeat. That and I would listen to Mandy more often, life would be easier. So gentlemen, take heed and listen to reason and your wives more often. So ends today Public Service Announcement.

 

Stupid capacitor.