Mesh
UPDATE: Although the fan is working, my wife just informed me that it's still 83 in the house.
 
Calling the AC guy to come over..........gonna step on the GAS to get home......  

best of luck Mesh - hopefully something non-major.

Hey guys, did Mesh leave any becan in his cubicle?
 
If so, I place dibs on it.

bapu
Hey guys, did Mesh leave any becan in his cubicle?
 
If so, I place dibs on it.

Pfffft....as if I'm gonna leave any BECAN lying around........(that's just drug induced thinking).......what you smell there my friend is.............. simply GAS........(becan GAS at that).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
My cubicle is clean.
 
 

I'm surprised Karyn hasn't commented on how sexist the topic title is! 
 

I'm a HandyJuan myownsef.

Mesh
UPDATE: Although the fan is working, my wife just informed me that it's still 83 in the house.

The fan is important, but if the compressor doesn't start, all you are doing is moving air.
It is basically a high torque pump, and needs a boost to get it turning. This is what the capacitor is for.
Think of the capacitor as a "burst battery". It provides a significant, short duration burst of power to start the compressor motor. It will gladly share that power with you, if you're not careful. On the other hand, a dead capacitor is fairly inert.
The capacitor is the cheapest and most likely cause of your problem, but it would probably be worthwhile to have you HVAC guy handle it.
 
Hmm. Looking at the time, you probably have it fixed by now. Hope everybody is comfy.

There are several things that could be the problem.  The motor not starting could be any one of several things....  bad capacitor, shorted or burned out coil, burned up relay, burned wire connection.  
 
I have replaced a few motors and caps in my time but have also run into compressors with bad bearings that seized up when I put a booster cap on it to get it going. It made one heck of a racket for the 4 seconds it did run... then BANG!!!  Silence...... OK... not good..... time to call my local HVAC guy.
 
While the HVAC crew isn't cheap, they do, for the most part, know how to troubleshoot and find the actual problem and get it repaired quickly, vs you trying part after part and since most stores will not take returns on electrical parts, you're out that money too.
 
My last case, with the compressor not starting.....I tried the booster cap.... $29, and that didn't solve the issue...... we ended up having to replace the HVAC gas pack due to it's age and the cost of replacing the compressor and still  having a 20 year old gas pack setting there. I used that opportunity to have everything... including the ductwork under the house replaced with all new. They were in bad shape.
 
Most of the time, when my HVAC system fails, it's either raining, snowing, generally at about 10pm when it's dark..... it rarely happens in the morning of a nice spring day.......  I had a blower fan go bad at 10pm on the coldest night of the year and there was an ice storm going on.  My daughters had to use extra blankets in their upstairs bedrooms that night..... next day, I got a new motor and had the split unit blower running by noon.
 
It's always something..... oh the joys of home ownership.

Outside compressor fan not working usually means a bad relay in the outside unit=easy to fix. Everything working but not moving air inside can mean a frozen or clogged evaporator coil or the air handler fan not working. A clogged filter could also restrict air flow .
 
Rocky

craigb
I'm surprised Karyn hasn't commented on how sexist the topic title is! 
 

I didn't think he was being serious...

Thanks all for the great info!!
 
On Friday evening, the AC tech came over and confirmed it was the capacitor that went bad (which is apparently a common thing here in FL from the regular lightning/storms). He replaced that and I also had him service the unit. Everything was done in under 30 minutes (in the rain) and he charged me $182.....which seemed like a reasonable price (compared to some of the other estimates).
 
The good thing I like about this company is that the owner asked me to check around (reviews/word of mouth etc....) before deciding to hire him as he's been in the area for 30 years doing the same type of work......I did confirm with some locals and all his reviews were very good......I'd definitely hire him again as (like Herb stated) he knew his job very well and was a very simple/easy to talk to guy.
 
I would've definitely called a handywoman to do the job, but there apparently had been a BOGO shoe sale at the mall.