Thanks - i was going to ask if i need to turn off the electricity.

There are approximately 500-1,000 deaths from electrical injuries in the United States every year. Nearly 3-5% of both fatal and non-fatal admissions to burn units every year are a result of electrical injuries.

bad connections or ballast shorting out. replace with direct wire LED's (remove the ballast). CFL's are absolutely useless these days.

Don't let them keep charging the unit every summer, have them put a sealant into the system to stop the leak..then charge it. They don't need to hit you up for 300$ every summer.

Ive got one for you. My A/C has always kind of done a shitty job of keeping when I do use it which is not all that often. It works but it seems to take a while. Regardless....it worked. It no longer works. I have done some of the basic stuff. I gave it a rinse as it was pretty dirty, i checked and replaced the capacitor as the herm side was about 30 percent low. I have the new one in and it still doesn't work. I get the fan to fire but the compressor wont do shit. I checked the voltages and while I do have a sticky contactor it did pull in and gave me my 240 to the compressor. I did hear a little hum for about 3 seconds, every minute or two which seemed to be the compressor wanting to fire but not actually doing so. I don't think there is anything else I can test with my electrical knowledge and tools.

So I went out to double check things. I swapped the fan and herm wires for the hell of it since the new capacitor has them on the opposite sides as the original. It actually fired the compressor that way for a a little bit. I could also pull the fan lead off the capacitor and it still ran the fan but at a way lower speed. There is some little blue thing that takes one of the herm leads and one common and then has a wire that enters and exits the blue thing by itself. Also when I test the contactor i have my 240 at the top but when its not sucked in i dont get 240 at the bottom but i do get 120 to each side somehow. The wiring sounds fucked up but its how its always been. I only changed the capacitor and took pics to ensure i put it back correctly.

The contactor is working fine then. Does that 2x2 inch rounded blue box with the capacitor common, herm wire and internal loop wire ring a bell with you? This thing has to be 25 years old, a carrier and it claims to be "high effiency" in and era where I don't recall there being any true high efficiency.

Can someone explain to be how a 25' x 25' deck costs over $10k to just replace the boards and railings? I got four different quotes and one was actually for $30k!

I need to replace the hot surface igniter on my brothers furnace and the old one seems to have no part numbers on it. Are this pretty much universal or do I need to get specific with this? It resembles the one in the link below only it was hardwired instead of the connectors.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Robertshaw-Hot-Surface-Ignitor-Series-41-407-41-407/300280479

That ignitor should be able to be replaced with a glowfly. It's universal, cheap, and will last times as long as that one. It comes with like 5 different brackets and directions on how to do the bracket thing. That's your best bet.

I have some if you're in my neck of the woods.
But grainger should have them.