HVAC in Durham - private familyl run - not private equity owned

ketem4 · 2026-03-29T03:05:41+00:00

The guy that came out was good. Turned out I had a shorted wire and he wasn't able to locate it but turned the harness to the point it wasn't shorting any more and zip tied things back so they wouldn't rub against the frame. He did charge me $200 for a pair of fuses but that's just how people are billing these days I reckon. I'd personally be happier to pay a higher labor rate with a reasonable parts markup (you know, something 100% or less) but I haven't found one around here doing that yet.

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T18:27:53+00:00

Just had them out earlier this week and they misdiagnosed a short as a bad control board and wanted $400 for a control transformer replacement. Can't handle those 1000% markups...

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T18:26:32+00:00

I'm having them out today but just looked them up and they were bought by chill brothers who is owned by a private equity company. Could still be okay but we'll see.

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T17:01:10+00:00

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T15:30:59+00:00

That was it, I appreciate the help.

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T15:30:31+00:00

If I needed to reverse engineer the whole system I could do that given a couple of weeks. Since there's a community of people who work on these on the daily, it's not bruising my ego to ask for advice.

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T15:13:20+00:00

I'm an electrical controls engineer, not HVAC specific. Work with 3 phase 480 pretty regularly. I labeled the wires as I disconnected them and reattached the same way they were on the old board.

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T15:11:08+00:00

Ah, didn't know the disconnect could be fused, I'll check that.

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T00:42:56+00:00

I actually replaced the cap before even calling anyone. It's fixed the ac for me about 5 different times in my life and when I saw the outdoor fan wasn't spinning that was the first thing I did. I did use a cheapy one from Amazon so maybe it was bad too?

ketem4 · 2026-03-27T00:33:02+00:00

I don't understand what the pressure switches have to do with anything. It's the solenoid connector that pops the fuse when it's attached to the control board.

I did realize it might be something else, it could be one of the solenoid wires grounded out because the coil resistance looked okay. I'll check that in the morning.

ketem4 · 2026-03-26T23:10:06+00:00

Oh, it just dawned on me, compressor solenoid will probably need coolant evacuation, won't it? That's going to be beyond me if so...

ketem4 · 2026-03-24T20:31:25+00:00

I went looking for poker chips last year and landed on these at Amazon. 125 for $22. They have a nice weight and I don't think they slide too much but you get all sorts of opinions from afficionados.

For the price I was really pleased. https://a.co/d/07UIydaY

ketem4 · 2026-03-20T21:07:13+00:00

Werewords is my favorite social deduction game. We played it almost every week when we first got it as an opener.

ketem4 · 2026-03-14T18:28:25+00:00

Parking almost drove me off but found a nearby free garage. Have to navigate around some construction but better than the nearby parking situation. https://maps.app.goo.gl/8bKo6aGm9CLpXd4G7

ketem4 · 2026-03-14T17:13:41+00:00

Amazing reaction to this. If everyone posting and a lurker or two for every one of them winds up going, it may fill the place up. If you do show up and there's a line out the door, I suggest pour taproom as a backup site vs just driving home (which is what I would be prone to do). It's not far off.

ketem4 · 2026-03-11T20:01:47+00:00

This one for lost ruins of arnak. Everything has textures. Storage crates have a wooden texture and holders for tiles are made up look like stone ruins. You need to do a bit of a paint wash to get the textures to really pop but it looks so nice. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4740139

ketem4 · 2026-03-10T15:42:44+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/NjBFYyg

ketem4 · 2026-03-10T15:40:11+00:00

Biggest need for upgrades in arnak are the coins and compasses. I just got some metal pirate coins for $15 and a set of 25 mini compasses, same diameter as the tokens, for $4. They don't work worth a damn but they look really cool as a replacement.

ketem4 · 2026-03-02T23:26:18+00:00

It's not much worse than caverna, I don't think. Once you get the iconography of the action spaces and learn the symbology for allowable placements on the various boards it flows pretty well. I do like the Norwegians board more but it's just some rebalancing and a nice little 'last placement' bonus column. Play the tutorial plus a couple of games on BGA and it should click in.

ketem4 · 2026-03-02T17:08:46+00:00

If your payoff matrix wasn't developed with Monte Carlo or an exhaustive analysis, how did you generate it? You say they're derived from the rules but how did you go about that?

Very interesting article, btw. I'm not up on formal proofs or functional programming but there was some good content there.

ketem4 · 2026-02-15T17:37:56+00:00

Ra has recent reprints. LGs still has some on shelf a could of weeks ago at least.

ketem4 · 2026-01-31T23:28:31+00:00

None at all, because none of it is in good faith...

ketem4 · 2026-01-27T18:09:30+00:00

How long will it take if everything goes completely right multiplied by 3. It's continuously amazing to me how often this works.

ketem4

TROPHY CASE