I was planning for a quiet, uneventful, lazy 4th of July holiday this year. But a problem with one of my house’s air conditioning condenser had me busy doing some work! The AC condenser I have is an old (read: crap) standard 3.0 ton 10 SEER. An HVAC “pro” told me that it’s old (only 6 years), it’s not even worth fixing – he wanted me to replace it. The quote he gave me was close to $6000! That got me so worried, I started calling my neighbor, Wayne, who has the same unit. It turned out he also had the same problem 2 years ago: the fan motor froze/died. He was quoted $900 by a “pro” to replace it. Wayne is a handy guy, so he got the motor (pictured above) and installed it himself – total cost: $80! Wayne was kind enough to lend me a hand replacing my broken AC fan motor. I bought the same motor yesterday from the same place for $100, and today, we finally got the AC condenser working again! I’m hoping to get another 5 years of life in the unit before having to completely replace it.
So the three of us now don’t have to squeeze onto a small queen size bed downstairs which had the only working AC. Now we can move back upstairs.
Tags: appliance, home improvement, repair
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Glad to hear you got it worked out. Sorry I didn’t return your call from yesterday (or was it the day before?). I was out and about with Scottie and family enjoying his last days in Laguna Niguel.
BTW, we’ve had issues with our 12 year-old units in Vegas on several occasions and the only time we were told by our “pros” that it needed to be replaced was when–over the span of two years–they fixed a part, another part failed , they fixed THAT part, and another part failed. At that point they recommended a new unit. I wouldn’t go back to that HVAC “pro” who recommended replacing a 6 year-old unit at the first sign of trouble.
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[…] neighbor and friends, Wayne and Lisa. I’m glad Wayne was around when my AC was broken and helped me fix it. Wayne is my source of advice for any DIY projects. I’m glad Lisa is […]