HVAC system at my office park failed during a heatwave last week

The AC went out on Tuesday at my 12 unit strip mall near Birmingham. Tenants were calling me non stop because temps hit 98 inside some of the units. I had to scramble and rent portable units from a local supply house for 3 days. Cost me about $2,400 total plus the emergency repair bill. The root cause was a bad capacitor on the main rooftop unit that I should of checked back in spring. Has anyone else dealt with a sudden system failure during peak season and had to foot the bill for temp cooling?

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

jordan1843mo ago

I used to be pretty lax about preventative maintenance myself but after shelling out for portable units during a heatwave I started checking capacitors every spring without fail. Your mileage may vary but thats a lesson I only had to learn once.

6

wadeowens3mo ago

@jordan184 nailed it with the capacitor check. Funny enough, I found out the hard way last summer that my main unit had a bad contactor too, not just the capacitor. They fail together sometimes. Had a commercial electrician buddy tell me you can test both for about 5 bucks in parts if you have a multimeter handy. I started doing a full startup checklist every April now, saved me from that exact scramble you went through.

4