Back in early May, about a week before I left on my motorcycle trip, the front AC unit in my house (it's zoned, front and rear, two separate units) completely crapped out. Compressor dead.
So, I had a company come out and replace that 17 year old unit with a new one.
However, when they were yanking the old unit I had him compare the two Trane units I had and see if there were any control boards, motors or anything else that could be used as spares to service the remaining 16 year old unit.
I got a little cardboard box full of fun.
My back unit started acting up this week. Either the air handler would turn on and the outside compressor wouldn't... or the compressor would turn on and NEVER shut off even though the air handler would eventually shut off. I could kill the compressor by flipping the circuit breaker, but that's it.
I killed the circuit and pulled the safety connector and started looking into it, and turns out the contactor switch had fused closed. Spring loaded heavy-duty jumper that gets engaged by a signal from the thermostat that activates a magnet to compress the spring and close the jumper. I took a pic of it on my cell phone and started yanking wires from the fused contactor and plugging them into the spare one I had. Compare pics, looks good, button the thing back up and turn on all the circuits.
Glorious, wonderful, normally functioning air conditioning in the back of my house again.
I thought about sending myself a $300 bill for my awesomeness. Then I figured I'd give myself a break and bought myself a beer instead.
