Saturday, the furnace starting making a loud hum when it should be starting the blower motor. The run capacitor is easily accessed and a multi-meter says it's failed. It's been humming before starting for a while, so I guess I should have been more paranoid and researched what it meant sooner.
So, surely the Des Moines metro area of 700K people has a shop that sells run capacitors for blower motors? Apparently not. Home Depot, Menards, and Lowes all stopped carrying HVAC capacitors. Ace and True Value hardware stores have none in stock and one employee said they know of no store that carries them.
Amazon shows several that will arrive Monday, so I ordered one.
I have noticed that problems tend to occur on the weekend, when the problems are more difficult to deal with due to logistics.
Example: House cat has had a few significant health problems in the past year or two. Every! Single! Occurrence! has been on a Friday after the vet's office closed, or maybe on Saturday. Very healthy cat Monday through Thursday.
הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים
Posts: 31696 | Location: Central Florida, Orlando area | Registered: January 03, 2010
Most capacitors are made in China now and cost $10. Even the new Tempstar AC unit I had installed last month. When I replace caps, I use AmRad or sometimes Capcom. AmRad is made in USA, and costs $30 or so. Capcom is the old GE ones and are made in Mexico. A little cheaper than AmRad. I don't remember if I have ever had to replace an AmRad. I guess you have to ask yourself if you'd rather replace three Chinese caps for the price of one US one. If you are ever in this situation again, go to a HVAC shop and ask them if they'll sell you one. I have acquired one that way in a pinch.
To get yourself through the weekend, you could manually spin your motor at startup, if you can access it. I had a bad cap on my old furnace and the blower cage was easily accessible. I jumped the cover switch, set the thermostat to call for heat, then just spun the fan a little by hand when it started humming. I would then force it to run a long time to heat the house up a bunch. Then shut if off and wait a few hours and do it again. It got me along until I could get a new cap of the proper size. You could reach in, get the fan spinning, and then flip the furnace on after you extract your hand but before the fan stops spinning.
Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus
Posts: 8292 | Location: Utah | Registered: December 18, 2008
You need ONE capacitor , so you order ONE .Do you see the problem here ? Remember .... Two is one , one is none . Which is what you'll have ( again ) after you change out the bad one . Weekends with no A/C can be miserable . Or expensive . Your call .
Posts: 4419 | Location: Down in Louisiana . | Registered: February 27, 2009
Originally posted by V-Tail: I have noticed that problems tend to occur on the weekend, when the problems are more difficult to deal with due to logistics.
Example: House cat has had a few significant health problems in the past year or two. Every! Single! Occurrence! has been on a Friday after the vet's office closed, or maybe on Saturday. Very healthy cat Monday through Thursday.
That is my experience also, ESPECIALLY with one of the cats! Every... single... time... it is just after the vet closes, or on a Saturday morning! There are several emergency vets in my area, but the costs are through the roof if you have to visit one!!!
_____________________________ Bill R. North Alabama
Posts: 4848 | Location: Madison, AL | Registered: December 06, 2009
You are spot on about failure of anything and weekend/holiday timing-
In February this year on a weekend, suddenly our furnace stopped working. It would cycle on, try to start and turn off. It didn’t take long to troubleshoot that the ignitor had failed. (we’ve been here some years and this was the first ignitor problem). It was around 15 degrees outside. Not a good time for a furnace to be down. We have alternate heating solutions (fireplace, kerosene heaters) but none of them are perfect and involve me doing a lot of background things.
I checked with the local heating/AC companies I trusted. Only way I was gonna get that replaced (IF they had the ignitor in hand- local Lowes and Homedeport were all out of stock) was to pay the emergency service fee. I’ll leave the amount to your imaginations). I found on Amazon that I could have a replacement ignitor for $29 prime delivery in one day.
So I sat down and began analyzing the furnace sequence flowchart and realized that the ignitor was a response in the furnace sequence, meaning that the furnace cycles on and begins to provide natural gas and if the ignitor does not light the flow, a temp sensor says "no" and it immediately turns off and will not attempt restart unless reset.
I found that simply by taking a long butane lighter I could simulate/stand in for the ignitor by lighting the lighter just before I heard the click of the gas release valve and the furnace would light! So what I did was to keep the furnace turned off manually and about every four hours or so I would do my manual lighting routine. It wasn’t pretty, but it got us through the weekend and the ignitor arrived the next day… So- total replacement cost… $29.
Posts: 1512 | Location: PA | Registered: March 15, 2009
I feel this right in my soul. Replaced the cap on mine. But it's limping along. Original builder unit in a 12 year old home.
Single speed unit in a 2 zoned home. Everyone is telling me whole thing is a failure waiting to happen. 12 years old and multiple things wrong. Probably going to have to figure out how to get a new unit.
Train how you intend to Fight
Remember - Training is not sparring. Sparring is not fighting. Fighting is not combat.
Posts: 8974 | Location: Woodstock, GA | Registered: August 04, 2005
Our furnace and outside central air is at least 25 years old, probably 30. A few years ago the furnace blower motor failed and a few hvac companies said to replace it all for $6000 to $12000, then one company said why not just replace the failed motor for $300. That worked well.
Two years ago we added R12 to the AC unit, replaced the cap, and also replaced a failing thermostat. All good since then.
JMO, but anytime the comment "you might as well replace the whole unit" comes out of the techs mouth you know you have a problem installer.
In every case but one, companies that showed up at the daughters house started in with the "it was installed in 09, old unit, you need to replace the whole system, better efficiency better blah blah, too expensive to fix, freon is the old kind super expensive.
We brought in our guys we trust and it was "we can fill it for $x per pound, it might run for a month or 6 months with the pin hole leak, (half what the other guys wanted to charge per pound) or you can replace one part and it will be fine.
We replaced the part and it's running, cold as can be.
Not everything is in need of "replacing"
Posts: 24653 | Location: Gunshine State | Registered: November 07, 2008
Originally posted by myrottiety: I feel this right in my soul. Replaced the cap on mine. But it's limping along. Original builder unit in a 12 year old home.
Single speed unit in a 2 zoned home. Everyone is telling me whole thing is a failure waiting to happen. 12 years old and multiple things wrong. Probably going to have to figure out how to get a new unit.
Unless your system is a complete fucking mess, there's no reason to replace 12 yr old equipment.
After the flood in 2016 I had an A/C guy come out and start up both units and see if they could be salvaged . One of them was toast . Replaced it . He tried to talk me into replacing the other unit . Said it was just a matter of time , blah blah . I told him that when it failed he would be the first one I called .A couple of years ago the condenser fan started squealing on a Saturday evening . I pulled the fan motor and got my handy dandy bottle of Zoom Spout Turbine Oil and gave the bushings a good soaking . Problem solved and still purring along . .
Posts: 4419 | Location: Down in Louisiana . | Registered: February 27, 2009
