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Re: Air Conditioner stopped working
Air conditioning repair is a very lucrative segment of the repair market. As a tech, I cannot control anything in regards to the parts costs. They are what they are. Generally, r134a refrigerant is somewhere around 15-25 dollars per pound. The Ridge's capacity (it's in grams) is somewhere around 2 pounds (to me it's foolish that refrigerant is still sold in 30lb tanks... we should have embraced the metric system years ago).
As for labor... replacing the condenser is not really all that difficult. You remove the front bumper cover, unbolt the two lines going to it and unbolt the brackets securing the condenser to the core support. Quite simple. The profit comes in the diagnosis, and the evacuation and recharging. Every A/C job requires the use of an A/C evac recharge machine. Basically, you hook it up, enter some info, and press start. Then you can walk away and work on something else for the 20 min or so it takes. It is again a situation where the repair facility has a captive customer. The average consumer does not have the knowledge or equipment to fix it themselves. In addition, many states prohibit unlicensed persons from working on A/C systems.
HT
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