A Chill Is In The Air

My AC unit has, for pretty much as long as I've lived here, had a bit of a hard time starting. To be fair, it was installed somewhere around 1998 so it's not like I have high expectations, but all the same I'd like to keep it going rather than drop a ton of money on replacing it.

Well, technically 3 tons of money.

I'd measured the run capacitor a while back, which is the usual suspect when these things start misbehaving, and found it well within spec. I put off dealing with it for a while, but it was always in the back of my mind that I should probably do something about it.

That "do something" is to install a hard start kit. Basically it's an extra capacitor that gets switched in during startup, and helps kick the motor over. Then the potential relay (which is an odd name given that it's an actual relay, not just something that has the potential to be one someday) disconnects it and allows the regular run capacitor to do its thing.

This is the actual name-brand made-in-USA one. The cheap import ones cost half as much, but are also about 4 times as sketchy. Given that it's $50 instead of $25, and that I'd be paying an HVAC tech probably $500 if I weren't doing it myself, I decided that it made sense to splurge.

First step: switch off the power, open the access panel, and glue the wiring diagram back onto the inside of the cover, since the adhesive had long since dried out and crumbled to dust.

I didn't take a "before" picture, but it was a wrinkled, shrivelled mess. It did, conveniently, include wiring information for exactly this kind of hard start kit, and so I was able to verify that its directions matched up exactly with the instructions included with the kit.

So, in it goes.

Not the tidiest installation, but it'll do.

I powered things back on and turned on the cool and the AC unit didn't explode in a shower of sparks, so that was certainly a relief. It also still spit out cold air inside, so that's worry #2 knocked off the list.

Does the hard start kit actually work? It's kind of tough to say. The sluggish startup was only really an occasional issue in the first place, so success is really measured more along the lines of "it doesn't not work". I'll just have to keep an eye on it and see if I notice it chugging when it starts up.

But so far so good.