Rant....

[andrewb70]

As some of you know I recently moved to Alabama. You may have also heard that its hot here and you would have heard correctly.

At some point last night the A/C stopped working. The home air handler was running and it appeared that the compressor outside was running as well, but no cool air. So we called a local HVAC company and they said that someone would come by in the afternoon, and around 2:00pm the guy shows up.



I take him out back and show him the A/C uni, and Immediately he says, your compressor is not running. I believe him because it did sound much quieter than usual. So he pull the breaker, takes off the cover, gets a meter and starts checking stuff. I am looking over his shoulder, mostly because I am curious about how this stuff works. Two minutes later, after testing what looked like a silver cylinder about the size of a pop can, he tells me that the capacitor is bad. Great! I ask him if he has it on the truck and he says probably.

While he is out there, I quickly Google A/C capacitor and a bunch come up ranging from 20-50 bucks. So he comes back and says that it will be 420 dollars to fix. I ask if he can give me a break out of parts and labor and he says "we don't do it like that." Clearly this was going to be a 30 minute job TOTAL from the time he walked into my door and a 20 dollar part.

Ultimately I wrote him a check for $50 for the call and told him to leave. I call the local HVAC supplier, tell them what I need, they have it in stock. I go there and the counter guy can tell I am mad....I tell him my experience and he doesn't flinch. I imagine he deals with these shysters all the time. I get the capacitor, 18 bucks, go home install it, have cool air in 30 minutes, including drive time and installation.

Rant over.

Andrew