The A/C technician recommended the following on a 5 – 7 year old unit during the seasonal check up. Dual capacitor (he says the current one is weak) – $440, secondary float switch – 200, hard start kit – 370 and a whole house surge protector – 300. (Total of 1,300)
What are your comments on the need or recommendation for each of these and their cost?
Thank you
Brad
Tom: Well, I wish I could ask one question, but I’m going to assume this one. It’s five years old, I was going to ask him is everything running fine? He probably would say, “Yeah, it was running fine. I was just doing my check up, I was just doing my check up,” because that’s the way the question was asked. If everything’s running fine, then no. Now, Hardstart kit you’ll put on very old units, maybe 20 years old and they’re starting to run a lot of amperage on the start up, so it kind of nurses them along for a few more years before they get rid of them. Dual capacitor, it wasn’t meant to have one. You don’t need one. The surge protector, no. That’s not going to do anybody any good. There are things that you could put on a unit but it doesn’t make sense. Especially the key to that question is five years old, and he’s just having a check up and it’s called the, maybe you know this term, Charlie, the up-sell.
Charlie: No, I’ve never heard that one!
Tom: That’s that $29.99 check up that goes away with the up sell.
Charlie: Yeah. You know what he needs on that air conditioning unit? I’ll tell you right now. He needs a second set of eyes is what he needs. Call Absolute Comfort Air and get a second opinion.
Tom: Yeah. If you’ve got a bad capacitor you’ll know it.
Charlie: Even if it’s a dual one, what’s it going to run? $300-$400 tops?
Tom: Yeah, but it wasn’t meant to have a dual on there at all. He’s just trying to sell bells and whistles. It’s called up sell.
Got a question?
Click here to ask Tom
Podcast: Play in new window