air conditioning woes
Aug. 11th, 2017 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
Well, I have had my air conditioning repaired... again. Yes, this is the second time in three days. Sigh. Since moving to Washington nearly two decades ago, I've never lived in a place that had air conditioning. It's typically just fine in the Pacific Northwest, with only a few days in the summer that get so hot it's nigh unbearable. Even last year, I never felt like it was hot enough to warrant turning on the a/c. That changed over the last couple of weeks, when it's been really hot here. I decided, okay, it's time to turn it on!
Only, of course, as someone who's never had to deal with a/c, I don't know what's required to maintain it or how it works or anything. I just set it to "cool" on the thermostat thingy, ran a program to achieve a certain temp, and left it alone. Except I noticed that while air was blowing, it wasn't cold, and the thermometer didn't noticeably change temp. I'm still under the two-year home warranty plan that my real estate agent got me when I bought the house, and I was hot and grumpy, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to really put in a service request. It's summer and we're going through a heat wave, so I thought it might take a week or more, and by then we'd probably be out of the heat wave. I finally put in a service request though, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to re-up the warranty on my own, so if there was something wrong with the a/c, better to just get it fixed now, for later use if nothing else. (The reason I wanted the warranty in the first place -- well, M. gives it to all her clients, but I was concerned about the age of the water heater. Having recently replaced the one in my other home, I didn't want to have to do it all over again here, since it's not a minor expense. So M. upped mine to two years. And of course the damn water heater is still going strong. You may or may not remember the LJ entries I wrote back then hoping it would break within 2 years so that a replacement would be covered under warranty.)
To my surprise, and delight, the company they dispatched the service request to came the same day. They wanted to see the big outside unit in the back (which, to be honest, I have no idea what it does versus the fan thing in the garage). They opened up a side panel, and the older guy was like, "I want to show you the problem. But I don't want you to throw up." And of course I was like, I DON'T WANT TO SEE. Anyway, there was a desiccated mouse corpse right on the wiring. He brushed/pried it off with a pen and replaced a wire, and was like, "Done!" It took maybe 10 minutes. (Me: "Why would it even go in there???" Him: "It was stupid. That's the only thing I can think of.") I let them upsell me on "furnace maintenance," which of course the warranty doesn't cover. As far as I could tell that did a whole lot of nothing -- but whatever, they were already there, and it might possibly be the only time that furnace ever gets "maintained" while I live here. He also showed me how to remove and replace the air filter, which is good to know (it's especially important to replace when you use a/c regularly, apparently). I ordered a 4-pack on Amazon so I'll be ready the next time. I also needed more refrigerant, which the warranty only covers part of. All told, the service visit, the furnace maintenance and the refrigerant cost about $300, which I think is fairly reasonable.
The air was soooooooooooo comfortable the rest of the day/night, and when I left for work the next day, it was still great. However, when I got home, the air seemed a little muggy to me. I checked the thermometer, and it read 80°F, despite the fact that I had set the thermostat to be 75°F during the day. Also, the air blowing out wasn't cold; it was cool, but basically room temperature air. I wondered if maybe I was crazy, or maybe it was so hot that the system couldn't keep up. But I had just refilled the refrigerant, and surely if it's hot, the system should be blowing even colder air to make up for it??
So I called the warranty company, and explained the situation. To their credit, they put out another service request right away, and assured me that I would not have to pay another one-time service fee, that this would count as part of the original request. It was about 6:30pm by then, so I knew it wasn't likely I would get any service that night. Luckily, it gets very cool at night, so I was able to stave off the worst of the lingering heat by opening windows.
Today, the same guys came again. This time they basically had to take the whole outside thing apart in order to install a new flux capacitor (I don't know what it's actually called... sorry, the Back to the Future geek in me couldn't resist). They theorized that when the wiring was replaced the other day and the system got going again, it was old and overwhelmed, so short circuited. Or whatever. Anyway, none of it cost me a penny, yay! I asked the lead guy how much he would normally charge for a job like this, and he said, "$450. Just for the repair." I guess that means labor and not parts? Anyway, considering a year of the home warranty costs $650, I'm now thinking it might be worth it to get. It covers all the appliances, plumbing and things like central air. Every time something goes wrong, it gets up there pretty fast in terms of cost, so it might be worth it just for peace of mind. Especially since I'm still waiting for my water heater to break down.
Anyway, I am now basking in my very comfortable house. I might even make a hot drink! How luxurious in the summer!
adelagia and slitherhither are supposed to come over next weekend, so I don't want them to have to bake in my house. Of course, it's supposed to cool down a lot by then, and probably won't even be an issue, but you know. Better safe than sorry.
Now I have to keep my fingers crossed that the a/c stuff really IS fixed, and nothing else goes wrong in the coming weeks. /sigh
Only, of course, as someone who's never had to deal with a/c, I don't know what's required to maintain it or how it works or anything. I just set it to "cool" on the thermostat thingy, ran a program to achieve a certain temp, and left it alone. Except I noticed that while air was blowing, it wasn't cold, and the thermometer didn't noticeably change temp. I'm still under the two-year home warranty plan that my real estate agent got me when I bought the house, and I was hot and grumpy, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to really put in a service request. It's summer and we're going through a heat wave, so I thought it might take a week or more, and by then we'd probably be out of the heat wave. I finally put in a service request though, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to re-up the warranty on my own, so if there was something wrong with the a/c, better to just get it fixed now, for later use if nothing else. (The reason I wanted the warranty in the first place -- well, M. gives it to all her clients, but I was concerned about the age of the water heater. Having recently replaced the one in my other home, I didn't want to have to do it all over again here, since it's not a minor expense. So M. upped mine to two years. And of course the damn water heater is still going strong. You may or may not remember the LJ entries I wrote back then hoping it would break within 2 years so that a replacement would be covered under warranty.)
To my surprise, and delight, the company they dispatched the service request to came the same day. They wanted to see the big outside unit in the back (which, to be honest, I have no idea what it does versus the fan thing in the garage). They opened up a side panel, and the older guy was like, "I want to show you the problem. But I don't want you to throw up." And of course I was like, I DON'T WANT TO SEE. Anyway, there was a desiccated mouse corpse right on the wiring. He brushed/pried it off with a pen and replaced a wire, and was like, "Done!" It took maybe 10 minutes. (Me: "Why would it even go in there???" Him: "It was stupid. That's the only thing I can think of.") I let them upsell me on "furnace maintenance," which of course the warranty doesn't cover. As far as I could tell that did a whole lot of nothing -- but whatever, they were already there, and it might possibly be the only time that furnace ever gets "maintained" while I live here. He also showed me how to remove and replace the air filter, which is good to know (it's especially important to replace when you use a/c regularly, apparently). I ordered a 4-pack on Amazon so I'll be ready the next time. I also needed more refrigerant, which the warranty only covers part of. All told, the service visit, the furnace maintenance and the refrigerant cost about $300, which I think is fairly reasonable.
The air was soooooooooooo comfortable the rest of the day/night, and when I left for work the next day, it was still great. However, when I got home, the air seemed a little muggy to me. I checked the thermometer, and it read 80°F, despite the fact that I had set the thermostat to be 75°F during the day. Also, the air blowing out wasn't cold; it was cool, but basically room temperature air. I wondered if maybe I was crazy, or maybe it was so hot that the system couldn't keep up. But I had just refilled the refrigerant, and surely if it's hot, the system should be blowing even colder air to make up for it??
So I called the warranty company, and explained the situation. To their credit, they put out another service request right away, and assured me that I would not have to pay another one-time service fee, that this would count as part of the original request. It was about 6:30pm by then, so I knew it wasn't likely I would get any service that night. Luckily, it gets very cool at night, so I was able to stave off the worst of the lingering heat by opening windows.
Today, the same guys came again. This time they basically had to take the whole outside thing apart in order to install a new flux capacitor (I don't know what it's actually called... sorry, the Back to the Future geek in me couldn't resist). They theorized that when the wiring was replaced the other day and the system got going again, it was old and overwhelmed, so short circuited. Or whatever. Anyway, none of it cost me a penny, yay! I asked the lead guy how much he would normally charge for a job like this, and he said, "$450. Just for the repair." I guess that means labor and not parts? Anyway, considering a year of the home warranty costs $650, I'm now thinking it might be worth it to get. It covers all the appliances, plumbing and things like central air. Every time something goes wrong, it gets up there pretty fast in terms of cost, so it might be worth it just for peace of mind. Especially since I'm still waiting for my water heater to break down.
Anyway, I am now basking in my very comfortable house. I might even make a hot drink! How luxurious in the summer!
adelagia and slitherhither are supposed to come over next weekend, so I don't want them to have to bake in my house. Of course, it's supposed to cool down a lot by then, and probably won't even be an issue, but you know. Better safe than sorry.Now I have to keep my fingers crossed that the a/c stuff really IS fixed, and nothing else goes wrong in the coming weeks. /sigh
