HVAC and Insulation From a Working Tech
Last October, I got a call from a homeowner in a panic. Her furnace had stopped working the night before, temperatures were dropping into the 30s, and she’d already paid a local HVAC company $189 for a “tune-up” just six weeks earlier. When I got there, I pulled the furnace panel and found a flame … Read more
Last July, I got a call from a homeowner in the middle of a heat advisory. Her central air had “just stopped working” overnight. When I pulled the air handler panel, the blower motor was seized solid — the shaft wouldn’t turn by hand, the winding insulation had that unmistakable burnt varnish smell, and the … Read more
It was a Tuesday afternoon in late July — the kind of day where the asphalt shimmers and your phone starts blowing up with service calls before 9 a.m. I pulled up to a house where the homeowner had been sweating through the night. “It just hums,” she told me, pointing to the condenser unit … Read more
Last August, I got a call from a homeowner in the middle of a heat wave. She’d already had two other companies out that summer. The first told her she needed a new refrigerant charge. The second said her system was just “getting old” and quoted her $7,800 for a replacement unit. She was frustrated, … Read more
Last July, I got a call from a homeowner in a newer subdivision — let’s call him Greg. His two-year-old AC unit was running constantly, the house wouldn’t get below 78°F even at night, and his electric bill had jumped nearly $90 from the previous summer. When I pulled up to his house, I spotted … Read more
The first time I tried to clean AC coils without damaging fins, I used a pressure washer. I know. I was a second-year apprentice, overconfident and underinformed, and within about 30 seconds I had flattened roughly 40% of the fins on a brand-new Carrier 24ACC636A condenser. The homeowner was not happy. My supervisor was less … Read more
Last June, I got a call from a homeowner in my area — nice guy, mid-50s, handy with tools. His AC had just stopped cooling on the hottest day of the year. The repair bill? $189 for a service call, plus $45 in parts. The actual problem? A clogged drain line and a filthy evaporator … Read more