I’m nice to people, or at least I try to be. I deal with all sorts of people in my line of work. I have several contractors with whom I’ve become friendly. I like to keep my money local, so I try to hire people I know when it comes time to have work done on my home.
My air conditioning died some time in the night on Monday or early Tuesday morning. I thought it felt warm in the house when I got up to go to work, but I figured it was just me. I always rush around in the morning and end up in a full-scale sweat before I walk out the door.
My husband contacted me around noon to tell me that the A/C was broken. He thought it was frozen up, but wasn’t certain. I asked him a few questions. When he told me that the fan wouldn’t run, but made a humming sound, I knew we needed professional help.
As luck would have it, I know a few HVAC contractors. One of them lives a mile or two from me and has repaired my water heater for me a couple times. He’s a nice guy, so I asked him if he could squeeze me in for an A/C service call.
This is the busy season for HVAC folks. My friend arrived around 8:00 p.m. He added me to his list the same day I told him I had a problem. This elongated his day by an extra two hours.
He found the problem as soon as he removed the heat pump cover. He pointed to a cylinder and said, “That’s your problem.”
My response was, of course, “What’s that?”
He explained how my capacitor was fried. He also explained how the varying amount of voltage that a home receives from the electric company can cause capacitors to burn up. He was surprised that mine had lasted so long. My heat pump is 20 years old, and the capacitor was original. My heat pump still has most of the original parts.
My house was bearable within an hour or so of him leaving. I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am that he came over to work on my air conditioner — especially since it was well after business hours.
He told me that I take care of him by making sure his paperwork is all correct before it goes to our fiscal office, so he will always try to help me. He charged an extremely reasonable fee instead of the monster bill I would have received from other contractors who worked late.
It just goes to show that old adage that I’ve always believed is true. What goes around comes around.
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