John's Blog

How about that.

Way back on Aug 9 I posted an article about the AC compressor whose fan started acting up. Unsurprisingly, it stopped working again a few days ago, same symptoms. Having already done everything I could, I called a local mom & pop. They quickly arrived and soon told me what I expected to hear.
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The fan controller was bad and the parts warehouse wouldn’t sell ‘em one because they aren’t a York distributor. They warned me that the part is hella expensive - they mentioned the cost and I winced at the news.
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I paid the boys $85 for the service call and made an appointment with a HVAC company that does Yorks. The next morning the tech arrived right on time and we both stood there and watched that fan work beautifully for five looong minutes or so. I went inside after that, leaving him alone to figure it out.
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The tech tapped on the kitchen door soon after that and gave me the good news. The fan started acting up soon after I went inside. Yea, it’s the fan controller. Yea, they’re in stock. He must replace the fan controller and the fan motor as a matched set. That’s roughly $3,500. But your system was installed eight years ago almost to the day, two years remain on the warranty. Should have it fixed in a couple hours, pay labor only.
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The tech was done in three hours, charged me for less than that. I noticed a problem with the unit but let him go as he had stuff to do. At 5:30 the unit was in the shade again so I went outside and fixed the thing that the tech had done wrong. He attached the fan blades to the motor shaft incorrectly which was causing a subtle vibration which would eventually trash the motor bearings.
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Tech was surprised that this was the first problem we had with the outside units in eight years, 16 years of total operation. I expect Ellen’s chiller to fail sooner rather than later. Hopefully within the next two years, right?