Good Morning. A small story. I have been smelling a slight burning smell, particularly in my office space, which is in the family room, and under the largest vent in the room. Our AC hasn't been up to snuff lately, it doesn't feel like the blower is doing the best job. My wife does not smell anything, and I think I can even smell it in our bedroom, but not anywhere else, which is odd. I did grind on a PC case with a dremel at my desk. I do think the smell could be from that dremeling, not from the AC. I may not have changed before taking a nap, thus the travel of the smell. But just in case, I went into my attic to take a look at the AC. And I did find a relay, which I replaced once before about a decade ago, that was buzzing almost kinda loudly. So I decided to replace it again. I also found some holes in the ducting which I patched up, and a whole bunch of insulation that someone moved and did not put back, and that the radiant barrier had fallen down pretty much everywhere (another story). I fixed the ducting and the AC is now able to do fine. It seems some taping gave out. So I bought a replacement for the relay. It should be a perfect match, and the last one was bought at Grainger as well. Only I noticed the old one has spades that seem to have been removed. 3 in the middle row. Is this normal? The new one has exactly the same specs. But I put it in and it did not work. EDIT: I've figured this out, it's normal for a relay, may have been part of a fan plug-in. So, I turned off the power before replacing it, and I am fully aware of the capacitor being live yet. When I went to unscrew the old relay from the metal surface it is mounted on it sparked. I believe I made contact with one of the connectors on the blower side, the I am assuming that was the capacitor discharging. But could I have done some damage elsewhere with that. As the system did not function with the new relay. When I went to turn off the power at the breaker box, there are no labels. I decided to just turn off all the 240v double breakers. I am certain one of them was my stove, maybe the other the oven. I know AC works on 240v, but could I have missed one 120v for the blower fan, and blown the breaker? I had my wife listening/watching when I powered them back on, and since nothing happened, I turned them back off. It's raining outside, the breaker box is outside, I'm not going out to look at until it stops raining. I do plan on some mapping and labeling as a next task. Thanks.

I have a new townhouse that I will barely need to use central air (I never had central AC before). Having a strong interest in the environment and it's not often I get hot, I will barely be using the AC. I am looking for guidelines on how long I should run it for when I use it and; do I need to run it every x amount of days or weeks? I ask these questions to prevent any problems. Maybe a dishwasher is the only appliance "use it or lose it"