Ask and Ye Shall Receive - AC Repair

This is the second batch I blew

I bumped the thermostat a few months ago. Yeah, it crossed a wire and blew a fuse on the circuit board of my central air system. Problem was, I didn't know that and the old thermostat ran solely on power from the circuit board. Well, feeling my old handyman self I went to Home Depot and picked up a new one (with my wife's help from online reviews at home). I checked the instructions and installed it exactly as it said to and turned it on. The digital display was up, but the furnace was not.

After a little more studying on the Internet and some inspection of the system I found the fuse I'd blown - a little 3 amp blade fuse (like what you find in the car under the dashboard). So I went back to Home Depot, but they only carried down to 5 amp fuses. I then called other stores and found similar shortages. I even drove to an electrical component distributor and they looked at me funny before sending me to a car parts store.

See the little purple bugger up in the corner?

Bless those car parts places. I bought their last pack of five 3 amp fuses and went home. I used all but the last while wiring, because I could get the heater and the fan to turn on, but I popped the fuse every time I turned on the cooler. Since it was the freezing cold of spring (for some reason this year's winter never wanted to die), I plugged in the last fuse and left the cooler part alone. Obviously I had time to wait, right?

Well, time flies when you're avoiding a problem. About a month ago I tried tackling the issue again and didn't get any further. I blew another fuse and had to run to the auto parts store to grab another one. I put it back together and left it again since I didn't know the cause of my woes. A week later I was speaking to my elder's quorum president and mentioned the needed repair. He looked at me quizzically and said, "This might seem kind of funny, but did you ask the Lord?" I said a half-hearted prayer after that and didn't get any results (strange, eh?). But that didn't matter because we had a bought of storms and cool weather so I didn't need it anyway...

The time came last week to start getting nervous. Weather predictions showed my good luck was going to run out this week and I had to work fast. Speaking with my Dad, he told me to call a friend of his who was good with mechanical things. I was "too busy" last week to call and put it off until this week. Early this week was crammed full of stuff too. Finally the temperature caught up to us. Wednesday it reached 81 degrees in the house. My family was roasting.

Thursday I got up (late) and walked to the thermostat. I said a prayer and told God that I needed this to be fixed. I asked for help for the sake of my family and went to work. There is a good scripture to remember at a time like this:

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbradeth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering," (James 1:5-6).

I didn't think of it at the time, but it proved true by the next morning.

First thing I did was call my dad's friend and left a message. While waiting for a response and checking electrical diagrams Steph said, "You should call my Dad." We were both a little dumbfounded when we realized that he was an electronics technician and would be a big help and hadn't thought of this before. With his helped I started checking wires for shorts and the circuit board itself. All proved fine between the thermostat and the board.

my AC compressor

After I finished talking with him, my wife noticed her phone had received a call from out of state. It was my dad's friend. He referred me to a friend of his who was an AC technician. This man explained that the problem was probably with the wires to the compressor or in the compressor itself and how to check it. Once I was off the phone I used my father-in-law's instructions for checking wires for shorts and found the wires where fine. Then I pushed the button on the contact in the compressor and the machine turned on. So the problem was not wiring or the circuit board and the compressor functioned.

At this point I had a bit of inspiration. The contact (specifically an alternating double pole contact) for my compressor relied on a signal from the circuit board to open the pathway to make power flow to the unit (it flipped the switch). Without the power flowing through the unit doesn't turn on and stay on (unless I stand out there and hold the button). I called my father-in-law back and said I thought there was an issue with the contact. He had been reading an online manual for the compressor and came to the same conclusion. We had found the source of the troubles.

The new alt dbl pole contact

Sadly, more trouble was on the way because I couldn't get the part. If a popular appliance department store made one, it would take until Monday to get here and that would cost extra because it would be expedited! Local HVAC repair guys wouldn't sell me one and E-bay charged double the price of the item to get it here by Saturday. We didn't find a better option by closing and figured we'd call more HVAC places in the morning and try to barter with them (it costs $50-$70 to get them to come out and diagnose an issue, then labor and parts on top - and I knew the cause!).

After work (4pm-8pm), I got home and put the kids in bed. I had hot wired the thermostat to stay on fan mode (on my last fuse again) so I could go and hold the button down to cool off the house. Before I got outside I saw my elder's quorum president through the window (lives next door) and asked him about the part since he's an electronics component salesman. He told me our friend and fellow doTERRA consultant (other blog) was a certified AC tech and could buy one (because if the AC guys can fix an AC in a day, the parts have to be nearby, right?) from the local dealers. Sure enough, I called, he said he could and this morning he swung by with the part.

My AC is running again and the house is fine. I worked as hard as I could at the project and because I asked in faith (and worked), God gave me the help and answers. Little miracles are just as real as the big ones and this one meant a lot to me. I will ever be grateful for the advice of my elder's quorum president who believes so much in the power of prayer.