Am I being as fleeced as I think I am
I had the ac at the house go out last night, the compressor and cooling fan outside are working, but the circulation fan in the indoor handler is not running. The exchanger inside is cooling fine the fan is just not running.
The tech who came out today said it was caused by build up on the fan blades (I had them cleaned and UV lights installed 3 years ago, but they were visibly dirty). He said the motor was seized and the capacitor was bad. He quoted 3200-3500 to replace the motor and capacitor, before telling me that for a 15 year old unit I’d be better off replacing the whole thing for 10-25k depending on brand and model.
I work in industrial maintenance, and while I know how ac works in theory I’ve never had much experience working on ac systems. That said, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with the rest of the unit and I don’t think 3200 seems like a normal price for a fan motor replacement. I know I could probably get the motor for around 500-600 based on other post in this subreddit and figured 2 hours max for labor. I’m curious if 3200 is reasonable for a hvac tech to charge or if I should try to get a second quote.
Also it’s worth noting that I’m out of town and have not been able to look at it myself, only seen pics from the tech and the quote was given to my wife verbally.