Quote Originally Posted by Edgeman View Post
Nothing like having the AC go out on a Friday afternoon. Have a call into the repair guys...sure hope it's something minor and they have the parts on the truck!

Maybe I need to take a HVAC course at my local CC, and start doing these repairs myself?

I totally feel your pain. I got home at 4:30 on the afternoon of July 3 and immediately realized the house was way too warm. We had JUST gotten the power back the night before after 4 days off the grid as a result of storms, so this was a real kick in the groin. I ran to the thermostat, saw that it was calling for cooling, then looked at the window and saw that neither the fan nor the compressor were running. I figured it was the start capacitor. I'm a construction superintendent and know a bunch of AC service techs, so I called one and asked him to get me a capacitor. Unfortunately, he didn't have the one I needed and couldn't get it until two days later (because of the holiday).

Thursday morning, he brought me the capacitor and I installed it myself. Still nothing. Now I was starting to panic, thinking my compressor may have crapped out. I called a different service tech that does a lot of side work and had him come check it out. Turned out that the contactor in the outdoor unit had basically fallen apart, and the metal piece that contacts the terminals and allows current to flow through had broken off completely. $180 for parts and labor and he had it up and running again. Not money I had planned on spending, but it was definitely better than buying a new outdoor unit.

If you have a multimeter, I'd start with testing your capacitor. If you don't have a meter, just buy a new one and replace one lead at a time, making sure you land each wire on the correct terminal. One should be marked "C" for "common", one should be marked "F" for "Fan", and one should say "Herm" which should go to the compressor. Hopefully that will solve your problem.

Good luck!