
It’s 106° outside, but it’s once again cool inside our home thanks to this guy, Brian, my new best friend. He came out this morning to replace a blown capacitor in our A/C’s compressor.
I had to look up what a capacitor does. Turns out it provides the initial jolt of electricity your air conditioner’s motors need to run successfully. It stores electricity and sends it to your system’s motors in powerful bursts that get your unit revved up as it starts the cooling cycle. So, yeah, if the capacitor is shot, the A/C unit won’t start.
My new best friend did say that most capacitors last for around ten years, so it’s surprising that it would blow after only three years. I told him that the control board on our two year old whole house generator, which is also supposed to last at least ten years, failed after just two years.
After hearing that, my new best friend quickly finished installing the new capacitor and hurriedly left. I think he wanted to avoid getting contaminated by my back luck.