Shortage of air conditioner parts expected this summer
This may end up a <i>good</i> thing for some people.  About 5 years ago, I had a heating&#x2F;cooling contractor come out to repair my A&#x2F;C unit.  It had failed just coming into a very hot night, I called a local company which told me &quot;first thing in the morning&quot;.<p>It got hot.<p>I went to YouTube and found a few videos -- I had already known about the two fuses leading to the A&#x2F;C unit, mine were fine.  I hadn&#x27;t known about a capacitor that was used to assist the fan in starting and discovered that taking a stick off the ground, starting the A&#x2F;C and whacking the fan was enough to make it run[0].  I ordered the replacement from Amazon[1].<p>I had forgotten to cancel my appointment and the gentleman with the company arrived mid-morning.  Being that the unit was all of 5 years old, and I had a good understanding what was wrong, I wondered what I&#x27;d be told so I acted dumb.  Wouldn&#x27;t you know it?  It turns out that &quot;the compressor is no good&quot;, and that &quot;the kind of compressor used in this isn&#x27;t made any longer&quot;[2].  I told him, &quot;Ah, that&#x27;s too bad, I guess I&#x27;ll have to have my Dad come out and replace it&quot; and sent him on his way.  Two days later I installed the first of the two capacitors I purchased and had working A&#x2F;C until early this summer.  This time when it failed, I took the panel off, saw the cap was bulging, and replaced it.  Fixed.  For those keeping score, that&#x27;s 10 years on an A&#x2F;C unit that apparently had a bad compressor and required replacement 5 years ago.<p>The moral of the story is that a few minutes of time on YouTube can save a lot of money and literal sweat.  If you have a professional that you trust, great -- if you don&#x27;t, get a second opinion before dropping a large amount of money simply because the A&#x2F;C repair company sent a sales-person out when what was needed was a technician.<p>[0] It wouldn&#x27;t <i>start</i> on its own, but I could get the house down a few degrees below comfortable and leave it off for the night, at least.<p>[1] I called a few places the following morning and nobody carried capacitors that size, locally; Amazon was it for guaranteed 2-day shipping; I miss Prime.  It also appears my capacitor isn&#x27;t affected by the parts shortage -- there&#x27;s several on EBay and Amazon at present.<p>[2] The technician (who was actually a sales-person) attempted to mix up energy efficiency standards and actual coolant formulations; I don&#x27;t recall exactly what he said but I recall searching the finer points and discovering that I had a very high-end A&#x2F;C unit, and the entire compressor was available in used&#x2F;new forms.  Oh, and mine is still &quot;just fine&quot;.