What are you babbling about? It is up and running now. Let's look at the timeline. It failed in the middle of the night before Labor Day. Labor Day the suppliers were closed. Next day by 10 AM it was fixed and working again. If your insight about using an oscope is correct, it came a day too late, but in fact, an ohmmeter is capable of finding typical shorts in motor windings. I suspect you just toss in a new motor while my background is one of finding exact cause.
I tend to always find cause before swapping in a new part, the difference in perspective may be partially due to my not having a work truck loaded with spare parts, I'll grant that, but additionally my pause was that I'd never choose a capacitor I expected to fail in 2 years time. That was the basis for my hesitation in considering the motor in the first place instead of just replacing the capacitor.
Who in this forum suggested only replacing the capacitor first? Nobody. I made the right call, get over it.
___________
Who in this forum really gives a crap about your little HVAC problems???
YOu did when you chose or defended a price that is excessive. There's nothing profitable about making people DIY instead of calling because the price is too high. I am PROOF of that.
_________
Charging what it cost to run a profittable business isn't someone needing money. Needing money is someone with no funds, asshole.
But, I wrote in excess of $200, rounded off it was a $250 repair... for a $13 part that takes 5 minutes. Fair is fair, if it took 2 hours then ok, but having no experience in repairs it took me less time.
It doesn't. Granted, hospital bills are crazy too, but I'd never pay $600 an hour like some HVAC techs claim is resonable.
__________
You better hope you never have to go to the hospital then... Won't pay $600/hr there...... LMAO
Which part, that I can read a hospital bill like anyone else or that I don't think $600 an hour is reasonable to drive a truck about 5 miles, , unscrew and rescrew 4 screws, and pop off/on 4 wires on a capacitor?
Face it, if I thought it was reasonable I'd have called an HVAC company again instead of DIY. What you feel is reasonable what I do, there's no delusion about that.
Certainly if you did a lot of work you are entitled to good pay for it. I have never meant to suggest a man shouldn't have fair wages. I only mentioned one scenerio, where _I_ felt cheated for less than 30 minutes total inlcuding drive time for a part that cost me $13.
yoU're most certainly entitled to whatever the market will bear, I only told about why I personally will not pay over $200 to replace a $13 capacitor that I can replace myself. Certainly there are others who have no clue about fixing the problem, so they necessarily have to pay more for someone to trace the problem.
_________
Yet you still came here asking simple questions... go figure!
It costs me $191 to put my truck on the road to go *to* a service call(using last months figures), and thats before I ever turn a screwdriver, yet I can only charge $75 for the service call fee..... Screw it, he is dumber than a democrap politician, and not worth it.
Ah, but ultimately I DID diagnose and repair it myself, ignoring the supposed pros here who suggested a fan replacement too. Would you have been able to tell the cap was bad or would you have had to wait too if you didn't have a spare on your truck? I think you might've had to wait till after the holiday then, just as I did.
Remember that I posted this topic on Labor Day, when suppliers were closed so there was nothing I could do to get parts until the next day, unless I'd wanted to pay even more to find the odd company that will do it at a moment's notice on Labor Day. The next day by 10 AM I'd already fixed it, vacuuming out the debris in the condenser cavity took longer than putting a capacitor in.
I don't accept fixed rate pricing. If someone charges a flat rate for any service call that's fine but there's no way a generic flat rate service call is worth $200 to me which is essentially what the charge would've had to be since rounding off the bill I'd paid for a cap replacement was closer to $250 than $200. I dug out the bill and it was $237.
The overall economic system is bad, but the truth is that having truck expenses including insurance, gas, driving time, is less expensive than the overhead from a mechanic's garage or doctor's office where the staff themselves are paid enough to also have a vehicle, home, insurance, gas, food, and everything else... all for less cost. Flat rate doesn't work in cases where a repair takes 5 minutes. Disagree if you like but HERE I AM, someone who chose not to pay that premium so some fellow HVAC tech lost out on making any money at all as a result.
I've never suggested the whole world should feel this way but the world IS changing. The internet is making any average Joe Homeowner capable of accessing information to DIY. Maybe this usenet thread is a wake up call about that. Sad but true, many professionals who depend on what they know more than the actual labor value will find it harder to charge flat rate premiums for the simplier tasks. For example, Mexicans mow our neighbor's yard and replaced our roof after a hail storm that insurance covered. They work disturbingly cheap and since neither of these tasks require more knowledge than could be learned in a few weeks, it makes the value of actual labor terribly low these days.
I'm sure he is going to cry for a week. When he realizes that one computer in one house in one town, in one state, in one nation...... won't be displaying his messages.
Just when this baboon says something that makes sense... he goes and screws his chances for redemption. I guess he just likes the phrase, Chris the Stormin Moron.
Yes, on my day off on Labor Day, when there were no suppliers open so I could buy a part. Because of these factors I threw out the question since a usenet search did not directly answer it.
You are just plain lying if you claim it costs you $191 to put a truck on the road for every call it goes to. Hint - I too drove a truck to work every day, this is not a bullshit session this is real life where other people own trucks and pay expenses.
How sad that you want to drive away someone who writes about facts. Yes, when you begin to bore me I will leave. You and others already had but then things got interesting again so I stuck around. Now it's boring again so I'll again write that I'll not bother posting anymore unless someone can come up with some valid (excuses?) reasoning instead of just trying to claim a 5 mile drive and under ten minutes is worth a little over $200.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.