AC Repair
There’s the usual, the unusual, and the quotidian. The AC stopping to blow cold air on an unnaturally warm evening in May? Calls for an emergency AC Repair.
After an uncomfortably warm Saturday night, I got to digging around on the inter-webs, trying to find an emergency AC Repair person. Place. Company. The top three choices, two of which I’ve used, plainly stated that they didn’t work on Sundays. Found a couple from a referral site, but that site kept popping up my first two choices who were plainly unavailable on a Sunday morning.
On a whim, I looked at the Yelp review for one of them, and there was a long diatribe about the cost of a service call, around $500, to replace a ten-dollar part. Keep in mind, this is Texas and AC is more important than some realize. Then the notion about the ten-dollar part?
I get ahold of this one service guy, good reviews, little glowing dot next to the company’s name, indicated that person was available. I got a message back in less than 5 minutes on a Sunday morning, so I hired him. Showed up before it got too hot, had tools, looked over the air handler and the outside unit, then took some stuff apart. I listened to the sound of an electric drill undoing retaining nuts and screws, “Zip, zip-zip.”
Heard the guy in the attic, he asked if I would hit thermostat to kick it on, then off, asked if I wanted the coolant topped up, and the part, the problem? That ten-dollar part. He had the replacement on his truck, a panel van with his last name as part of the company’s name.
I got a little nosy. Since he left the truck’s side door open, I looked at the tools, parts, pieces, and what all. There was a ladder, then shelves with boxed parts, a couple of coolant compressor cans, and then the tools themselves, each set was sort of organized in handy, single-carrier trays.
Some years back I thought about that as the ideal way transport what I use for work, cards, keyboards, tablets, maybe a tablecloth, signage, and so forth. I thought one of those trays might be the most efficient, because, at the end of the day, all I want to do is sweep everything into a bag and leave.
Tools fascinate me.
The guy was here for an hour, hour and a half, maybe, and the AC was blowing cold in the first few minutes. He wrangled a secondary repair, and the part he replaced? Probably cost less than ten dollars. Knowing which part to replace? Plus fiddling with a possible leak, and fixing that? Working on a Sunday morning?
Personally, I was fascinated with his collection — and organization — of tools in the back of his truck. AC Repair equipment. Then, after just a quick glance, he knew what to grab, what might be a problem, and there was a copper line that was exposed, and he suggested a quick turn of insulation to prevent further problems.
I’ve got a neighbor who thinks of himself as a DIY Guy. If I had called him, we would still be sweating in the heat, days later, trying to figure out how to cut the electricity off to the AC unit so I could replace that ten-dollar part. Days, maybe a week or more.
Me, I’m glad I called the guy, and the original invoice was $390 a little bit better than the big company in that Yelp review, plus? Sunday morning.
It not about just the cost of the repair, but the knowledge on the most efficient route to take, and then, having material on hand to accomplish the task quickly.
“Seen this before, and what it means?”
AC Repair
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