AC work

[sroswat]

Quick question for the green screen. I had an ac company come out to service our two units. The tech quoted me $534 to replace two capacitors for the condensers that he said were both under warranty. I know nothing about ac work. They are prob 7 years old now.

[Txhunter3000]

You can do it yourself. YouTube is your friend. Capacitors are $ 30-$ 40 a piece.

[basschsr]

Capacitors are relatively cheap, $5-$60 cost to the contractor depending on the size. Will take him less than an hour to replace. At $120/hr (high side) plus service call fee and parts with mark up, I think he’s a bit high. $200-$300 max. That said, just take into consideration that you are paying for his knowledge of how to troubleshoot and repair

[sroswat]

Thanks y’all

[Ungawa]

He’s much too expensive.

[WTX]

Wow, $534.00?? What is your location?

[Tx.Fisher]

If you’re mechanically inclined, changing a capacitor is easy, costs $20-$40, and takes 20 minutes. Take a picture of your current capacitor, and find it on ebay. Just make sure you kill the power at the disconnect outside, put the wires exact same as they were. YouTube is your friend.

[sroswat]

Midlothian….the company came recommended too. What definitely got my attention was “warranty” Wk for $500!

[BLee15]

Weekend work is more than during the week work. Be sure you are comfortable changing out the compactor because they can be sketchy and shock/ kill you really easy if they still have a charge.

I had to get 6 pounds of Freon put in my AC and it was $600. Please came recommended through church but don’t think I got the church discount. Seemed high but is what it is on AC work

[Txhunter3000]

Midlothian….the company came recommended too. What definitely got my attention was “warranty” Wk for $500!

Did the company come out because there was a problem or just to do a checkup of your units?

[Txhunter3000]

Weekend work is more than during the week work. Be sure you are comfortable changing out the compactor because they can be sketchy and shock/ kill you really easy if they still have a charge.

I had to get 6 pounds of Freon put in my AC and it was $600. Please came recommended through church but don’t think I got the church discount. Seemed high but is what it is on AC work

Did the ac guy find the leak, 6# is quite a bit.

[BLee15]

Did the ac guy find the leak, 6# is quite a bit.

couldnt find the leak. Thought it was odd also. House is only 3 years old along with the ac unit. Came out because the AC wasn’t blowing cold. Never really understood paying someone $100 bucks to come check on the unit that working fine for a “check up”

[OTL91]

Figure 2-4 hours of labor (drive time, waiting for customer to answer door, accessing unit, replacing parts, checking unit operations after repair, and writing up work order) at 90-125 an hour, capacitor cost + markup, taxes on the materials, and maybe a 75 dollar “diagnostics fee” or “truck surcharge”. It’s not just the techs wages you are paying for… it’s the office, the office staff, taxes, call backs, insurance, the 40-60 thousand dollar service truck, and it being a seasonal business. The real inexpensive places struggle to pay their bills and many go out of business. Make friends with an HVAC tech (or any trade for that matter) and see if he does side work… that’s the real trick to getting affordable repairs. I agree it is expensive but so is everything else today.

Now if he came out for a “100 dollar summer special check up” and sold you two capacitors you didn’t need this might be a different story.

[sroswat]

I called them out to do a check of my system. Oh, and he wanted to replace the blower motor for one of the units that was under warranty. But I will say it has been super humid in our bedroom.

[andre3k]

Pretty much everyone needs to pull the side cover off their AC. Take a pic of the capacitor, learn how to discharge it and keep a spare on hand for the summertime. This, cleaning coils yearly and clearing clogged condensate lines will alleviate a lot of homeowner service calls.