Someone should be ashamed...

[hrdwrkingacguy]

I went to a coworkers house yesterday because her AC wasn't working right, and this is what I found...I'm at a loss for words...Funny part is this isn't the only reason the unit didn't work...Apparently the indoor coil sucked up most if not all of a cat worth of fur...

 

[puddle jumper]

Re: Someone should be ashamed...

Thats funny. Looks like the cat had electrifying hair cut.

 

[tswiczko]

Re: Someone should be ashamed...

Wow I don't see a wire nut on the common lead of that motor either..

Put that ground wire under a screw and wire tie those leads up and to something so they don't get sucked into the fan, and put that capacitor back in it's mounting bracket.

I worked in that industry(hvac/r) for quite some time (17 years). I hate to say this but I have seen a lot of that type of laziness from people who thought they were good mechanics because they made the system functionable again but didn't do the little things like tie the wires up, or clean up after themselves.

And tell them they need to vacuum the cat more often and if you can post a video of them doing it it should be entertaining.

 

[jlinder]

Re: Someone should be ashamed...

Could not tell enough from the picture (is it just me?) but wouldn't this indicate a problem (or failure) of the air filter? I know most of the cheap air filters are referred to as "rock catchers" and not that great, but shouldn't it block cat fur?

Also a big fan of the better filters like the Aprilaire that really filter the air, and are accordion folded and about 4 inches thick.

 

[Silverbullet555]

Re: Someone should be ashamed...

I can't see the pic that well, but the wiring looks a lot like some of the wiring under the dash of many boats out there and many cars when someone tries to add something.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Someone should be ashamed...

WOW, was the wiring like that when you unbuttoned the side panel I have a recent experience something like that.

We had our AC go on the fritz a couple weeks ago, the day before I was supposed to go on vacation. I'm thinking $300-500 and the first guy quoted $1000-$1300 to clear an obstruction. I felt like I was sitting in a car dealership with all these numbers, lines, columns and odd terms written all over a piece of paper. A quote to replace our 4 ton combo system was $10K, of course they could be over that day to replace the system... I paid him the $29 inspection fee and thanked him for his time. Heck, I'm not dumping $1K into an old system, 10K for a replacement didn't sound right either.

The next morning I crawled up on the roof to see what's up and find several screws sitting on top of the unit (they were not there the last time I replaced a motor) and the the compressors shrader valve caps were sitting on the bottom pan of the unit, nice shiny clean brass fittings were looking at me from where the caps were the day before. After checking things out I saw the repair was out of my league, so I asked a neighbor if he knew an HVAC guy, he did, which was a good thing. The second HVAC guy put some freon in the system and I could see the outlet duct temps drop as he was adding the freon. Outlet duct temp went from 74* to 61*. His bill was $130 and I tipped him another $100. The AC has been working great for 3 weeks now...

So not only did the first guy misdiagnose the system, he was going to charge 10X what an independent shop did and didn't left things torn apart. Sure happy I found an honest and knowledgeable person to work on our AC system.

Oh, I asked the good HVAC guy what a ballpark figure would be for replacing our combo system, $3500-4000. That's one heck of a lot better than $10K