“It’s jigawatt, with a j.”
“It’s spelled with a g. Giga. You know, for like, a billion. A billion watts.”
“But Doc Brown says jiga. They wouldn’t have gotten it wrong in the movie – he says it too many times. And he’s a scientist.”
“It’s likely both.”
“It’s not both.”
“Say this word out loud: g-i-a-n-t.”
“Giant.”
“With a g?”
“….”
“ ? ”
“Do you lay awake at night and practice having arguments about this shit?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
I’ve had my capacitor break on my AC. It cost me $300 to have it replaced.
Then a few months later it went out again and the AC people came back and told me my whole system was done. I got a second opinion from a very nice AC guy, who has this rare trait of honesty. He not only told me that the previous guys disconnected my compressor (hence the AC not coming on) and that I only need a new fan motor which costs $100. He then serviced my air conditioner and replaced the fan and in total cost me $250 for the new parts and 2 hours of his time.
I told him about what the other AC guys had done for me previously (upgrading parts of my system to extend the life). He went over my receipts and told me he wondered how they could sleep at night. Apparently $300 for a capacitor is outrageous. He said it’s at most a $25 part and requires little to no labor to install. You simply unplug the old one and plug in the new one.
Moral of the Story: Be very careful when it comes to AC people. They know you’ll do just about anything to get it back and they have no trouble sleeping at night.
Yeah, the capacitor is like $20. And because our home is under warranty, we only had to pay for the visit. I’ve been working in the Architecture/Engineering industry for 10 years, and am lucky to have made some good friends who are handy and generous. A mechanical engineer friend recently took a look at our HVAC to diagnose any weaknesses and so when we heard “capacitor,” it made sense.
I just had the same issue happen. Changed capacitor then a month later need a whole new unit. I rent so no cost to me. Hope it holds up for a while.
LOL!
(Happy to hear all is well.)
This whole conversation made me laugh. So familiar!
My husband and I are both scientists/engineers, so this particular argument would never come up. However, there have been many others in this vein, so the conversation felt very familiar. (It helps that my husband is a terrible speller…)
So, which one was you in that whole conversation? I have a pretty good idea, but still…
Oh, and as a mechanical engineer, Doc Brown can suck it.
I shudder to think how someone in that conversation might say “engineer.” LOL
We had one go earlier this summer…$90 bucks all said and done to swap it out. I considered that getting off easy!
“giga” is latin
there is no “j” sound in latin
i’m a nerd.
don’t tell anyone.
ha! well, the root of giant is also latin, but that doesn’t mean we don’t opt to pronounce it with a “j” sound.
The capacitor just broke on our a/c too! Like you, we only had to pay for the visit (get the home warranty!) but that 12 hours was horrible, esp. with an infant. Damn this Texas heat!!!!!