Took me 3 weeks to fix a walk-in cooler I thought was broken

Last month the walk-in started running warm on a Tuesday night. Temp crept up to 50 degrees by Thursday morning. Called a repair guy, he changed a capacitor, charged me $450. Still warm the next day. Then I noticed the evaporator fan was spinning slow, like barely moving. Turned out the motor was fried and the capacitor was fine. Cost me another $320 and a weekend of throwing out prep that had already been made. Whole thing took 3 weeks because I trusted the first guy instead of checking the basics myself. Anyone else had a simple fix that got missed by a so-called pro?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

ryanm608d ago

Whoa, hold on there! I gotta respectfully disagree with calling that first guy a so-called pro. Seems to me like you're blaming him for a diagnostic issue that happens to the best of us. He checked the most common culprit first, the capacitor. That's step one in any cooling issue. You even said the temp was up to 50 degrees, that's a huge load on the system, so a weak or failing cap is a super logical first guess. It's easy to say "check the basics" after you know the answer, but in the moment, a fan motor that's dying can act fine but just be slow. I've been there where you swap a part that tests fine on the meter because everything else checks out, and it still ends up being something else. It sucks you lost the prep and the time, but throwing the tech under the bus for not instantly knowing a motor was wearing out feels a little harsh to me.

10