23 August 2005

I recently replaced the condenser blower motor on my home's air conditioner. The bozo
from Comfort Air of Orange County, California showed up, said he didn't have parts, and
that the previous bozos from A-1 put in the wrong motor, and got $60 for his half hour.
I should have been suspicious when he showed up in clean clothes.

The 1/10 HP 230 V single phase motor cost $180 and it took me a few evenings to
replace, most of which was spent dealing with rust. I (unlike many computer science
types) know which end of a soldering iron to hold, but was worried about 230 V. That's
foolish, single phase is just like regular house wiring. I miswired the capacitor at first,
so the motor didn't spin (I hadn't taken notes as I should have and there was some
ambiguity) but nothing was ruined and I got it to work. So try it! The Comfort Air bozo
was going to charge $600!