This heat is making my wife kill me - help me fix the AC please! FAQ

There are only 3 numbers to look for:

440 VAC is the voltage rating. It should be that numer or higher is ok. In a pinch you could even go lower to a 300 volt number.

The capacitor will have some leters near each terminal. Match the leters of the old one to the new one. The 5 uF will go to the fan motor and the 35 uF will go to the compressor and the 3rd wire is common to both.

If it has been 10 days of no AC working chances are yu have burnt out the compressor. If the capacitor goes bad often the compressor will try to start and the internal overload will trip. It will shortly reset and the compressor will try to restart. After a long time of this the compressor motor goes bad. You can often hear a loud hum of the cpompressor every time it tries to restart.

That's your problem. You need to set it on AC, not heat. Glad I could be of help.

I don't think you need one. I always got a convincing test of capacitors with a non-digital ohmmeter. (You can try with a digital meter too but it will be not nearly as clear, maybe not clear enough.) ) After you disconnect the wires to it, I suppose you should discharge it first so you won't damage the ohmmeter,

And I think you should discharge it through a resistor, because I have a vague feeling that if you short both sides of a cap, it can discharge so fast it damages itself, or you. I could be wrong, but anything from 100 to 10,000 ohms ought to work. If it's high ohmage, I guess you may have to give it some time to discharge. Maybe don't hold the resistor or a wire with your fingers in case they get hot. I've forgotten a lot, maybe a cap can't get hot from what's inside it, who knows.

But anyhow, once it's discharged, connect the ohmeter and you should see the needle go pretty far to the right, then gradually back to the left as the cap gets charged. Then you can reverse the leads and this time it will go even farther to the right, becuse it has the ohmmeter battery and the charge that is in it both pushing. But again it will charge as much as the battery can charge it, and the needle will start moving to the left.

Does this tell you the numerica capacitance, no? But it will tell you if it's open or shorted, and if it's neither, it's probably good.

I got my spare when the people next door got a new AC and they left the old one out for the trash! Do you mind waiting until you find one?

This is all that matters: 35UF 5UF 440VAC 60HZ

This I found quickly. It's round, not race-track shape, and you can either make it fit -- you have plenty of room -- or keep looking to find just what you want.

When I put in your exact size, they have plenty of them too, all round so far.

Be sure to note, before you take them off, which wire goes to the small side, which to the large side and which to the common.

But is this the problem?

It uses a relay, yes? Is the relay closing? Etc.

There's no noise from the compressor but at around ten or twenty bucks I figured I'd first replace the capacitor - but the only ones in stock are ten times that amount it seems.

Are these prices right for the Capacitor Part Number: Z97F5368

The part in single-unit quantities seems to be backordered all over.

Thanks for that advice where I found someone with the same problem.

It should be fine. Those capacitors should only cost around $ 15 to $

That would be my choice. Take the old one with you. Once you have it, you may be up and running in an hour if that was the problem. Do you really want to wait for mail order in this weather?

If nothing else, go to the store and get a 6000 BTU window shaker for the bedroom. It can save your marriage.

What I meant was I don't think you need a capacitance meter. Not that you don't need a capacitor.

Even though this takes too long to get, the reviews which talk about how it fixed their AC should be encouraging. And I learn a lot more than whether people like the thing, from Amazon reviews.

Just a suggestion, but I've found the repairclinic.com to be quite helpful.

For years, I didn't care about AC but this heat is getting too hot for me. Maybe I'm turning into a wussy in my old age - dunno. I used to be tougher.

Anyway, I'm going to fix it. I'll try a local store. Do you think Home Depot will have them in stock?

Here's a set of photos of temperatures at 6pm today - it's cooling down. The top row is upstairs and the bottom row in successive floors.

Anyway, there's apparently a windheat factor (on dry bare skin) just like there's a windchill factor (again, on dry bare skin) because at 104 degrees while I type here in front of the computer, the fan only cools me down until the sweat dries and then I get hotter (like when you swish your hand in hot water).

Windchill happens below 98.6 (for dry bare skin). Windheat happens above 98.6 degrees (again, dry bare skin).

How do I know that? Because it's 104 at my computer and the fan is just heating me up. :)

It's hotter than it used to be. I haven't had AC for 10 or 15 years and it wasn't really a problem. There were at most 4 bad days a summer. This year it's only July 6 and there have been 3 bad days.

I don't know if this is part of a normal hot-hotter-cooler cycle or part of climate change, but for sure the people who deny climate change don't know they are right, even though they say they are right. Maybe when I move to an old-age home, I'll pick one in Canada. I can make new friends.

It won't. I looked already. They are ship to store or ship to you. I don't know if they estimate time or how accurate their estimates are.

Where do you live? Rather than do examplar-looking in Baltimore, I'd rather spend my time looking where you are.

According to the "experts", climate change is occurring on Mars too.

Is my dinosaur juice burner causing that too?

Or a portable. They work better than you think. Key notes: Make sure you can turn off dehumidify or you may have to empty a bucket every hour or 2. All but one of my windows have the side-by-side (slide) windows so use portables and the kit that may be separate at Amazon for patio doors I have 2).

Maybe a portable works best as she can move it where needed.

Home Depot will have window ACs and portables. Grab a portable and order the capacitor.

That's what I did. Not used much but I made the mistake of waiting until it got real hot before turning on AC finding it would not work and would take a couple of days for my HVAC guy to get out.

Similarly one year waiting until grass needed cutting to find lawn mower would not work.

Give that the OP said it was 20 years old, it is nice insurance to have one on hand. Time to think about replacing.

My friend has two houses and each has two AC units. The ones at the beach were just replaced after 12 years of exposure to salt air. One at the main house is about 20 years and was replaced too.

The OP is talking about central air, right. Payne AC

BTW, mine, Carrier, lasted about 36 years, until about 10 years ago, but fwiw when it failed it was the compressor, not the cap.

A friend gave me a portable AC. it was hard to get upstairs, and now that I'm 9 years older, it will be really hard to get downstairs. It's in the bedroom and makes too much noise to suit me. I don't know how to turn off the dehumidifier part. In fact I thought that condensation was inevitable when there is high relative humidity to start and the air is cooled. Relative humidity can't go over 100% and cool air can't hold nearly as much as hot air. Am I missing something.

But my house conveniently has a 2 foot or so overhang of the 2nd floor in the front and 18 inches or so in the back. So I drilled a hole in the closet floor and ran some fairly large aquarium tubing from the AC through the hole. If there were no overhang, I would have drilled the hole through the wall. Isn't that a good idea? Not that I'm recommending window or portable. If he has central AC, he should fix that. I had reasons why I didn't fix mine.

What I might have done is put a split in my office bedroom. Until this year, the sleeping bedroom was always cool enough by the time it was time for bed, and if I didn't want to listen to the radio, I could sleep in the backyard**, but during the day there were always a few days the office was too hot. The problem was, I planned to do it myself. They have diy version that look really easy. Connect the compressor to the same wires the central is connected to now, run the pre-cut tubes up to the second floor opposite the spot near the ceiling. Mount the interior unit on the wall near the ceiling and connect the tubes. I actually priced this online but hadn't decided between competing brands, and I was 74 then. Even though I've lost 30 or 50 pounds since then, I just don't feel like doing it myself, or paying someone who will likely disappoint me.

They have systems like this with two in-home units. But again, not for the OP who should fix what he has, even if it needs a whole new compressor unit.

Where can I get a portable AC unit? I never heard of them.

How do you get rid of the heat if it's not in a window?