On 7/25/2015 10:27 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
This morning my heat pump outside unit was not running. Not having any
parts and the parts stores closed I called an Air condition service company.
Fellow came out and found the trouble as soon as he took off the cover
plate. A bad dual section capacitor.

While talking to him I mentioned I knew a lot about electrical work being an
electrician in a large company. He asked me to guess the cost of the
capacitor. I guessed about $ 50 thinking I was allowing for a good a markup.

Turned out it was $ 369. The call to just come out was $ 89. He did check
the refrigerant pressures and temperatures after he go the unit running.
That made the call around $ 468. Everything was OK.

His explination for the high cost of the capacitor is that most people don't
know about parts cost and they use the cost of parts to offset the service
call. Beats charging $ 200 to come out in most peoples thinking.

He did give me a few hints about some things on the unit and said I may want
to get online and order a capacitor and contactor so I will have them as
that is what fails the most.

I did not mind that charge too much as he had to drive about an hour to get
here. I did let him talk me into an extra $ 100 cleaning of the coils and
checking out of the unit as I had not cleaned the coils . I put in the
system about 9 years ago. Altogether he spent about 3 hours here and
probably 2 hours driving, so I don't feel ripped off and have some education
on the unit also.


I'm sure that you know that saying, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)? A
month or so back I had to have our Central AC serviced as it would not
start up.

Owner of the company came out - same people that installed the now 10 yr
old Lennox system. Removed access plates in the air handler unit
checked relays there and finally traced the problem to my wife's
incessant dusting and cleaning. Seems she had accidentally, slightly
displaced the thermostat unit with timer, etc. from the mounting plate.
(really weird since it continued to properly control the heating
side). A hand removal and replacement of the thermostat and we were
back in business.

As long as he'd come out I asked if he'd give the system a check. He
did and measured the refrigerant level and found it within specs as I
figured it would be. While inside the unit he spied the capacitor of
which you speak. "Looks kinda grungy, let me check it." Out comes the
test equipment and "It's on its last legs. Might as well replace it and
save a service call later this summer or beginning of next year."

Go for it.

He was out at the house for about an hour all told. The total bill was
$98.00