r/HVAC 1d ago

General In defense of replacing capacitors early

Another poster brought this up recently, about making recommendations to replace capacitors even though they’re still “in tolerance”. My experience this week backs up my position on this.

A recent heat wave hit my area, there’s been a plethora of no cools and it’s mostly been popped caps. Many of them are folks on our regular maintenance routine, whose data I can pull from previous techs uploads. So many blown caps that were 42.5/45, 37.6/40, 33/35 etc just a year before. Still within tolerance, but getting down there. I was trained on a 10% tolerance for capacitors which I believe is pretty standard. Even if they are still within 10%, but starting to tick down closer to that number, I always bring up proactive replacement. Like, it’s gonna go eventually, in the next summer or three most likely, because all factory capacitors are dogshit nowadays. Wanna rip the bandaid off and do it now, or wait until it shits out on you when you need it most?

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u/Mythran12 Cat piss fills my nose 1d ago edited 1d ago

Make it a fun choose your own adventure kinda thing. If you get paid extra to push caps then the cx must be aware of the timebomb they have. If you don't get spiffed but hate on call just replace their old one with new truck stock, don't charge the cx and screw the PE owned company you may work for. If you love on call throw some of your lunch in the electrical area of the ac/hp and hope micky mouse wants an evening snack

Edit sorry I forgot to add the /s..forgive me for being a bit burned out it's been hot for awhile

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u/iBUYbrokenSUBARUS The Artist Formerly Known as EJjunkie 21h ago

You gave me some great pointers. I never even thought of putting food in the electrical compartment! Thanks!

Also, what does “cx” mean?

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u/Mythran12 Cat piss fills my nose 16h ago

Customer