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September 22, 2008
Minor inconvenience
Last week it was so cool that I actually turned the A/C of in the afternoon, and let the house heat up a bit so it could cool off over the night. That sounds weird, but it actually worked out rather well. I can't see paying to cool the house a degree or two right before it gets cool enough outside to cool the house a degree or two. Plus, I think the coolness might have actually been waking Owen up. When it warmed up a bit, I started this game of A/C juggling, where I turn the upstairs one on so the kids don't cook, then turn it off at bedtime and let the heat from downstairs rise up.
No, I don't have enough to do.
This weekend, the warm came back in earnest. Not hot Texas summer earnest, just hot Texas fall. Still, though, the house was getting pretty toasty, so I quit playing games and just let everyone enjoy the blessings of conditioned air.
At least, I tried.
Saturday afternoon, I started getting a little warm in my office. I almost never get hot inside the house unless I'm doing something *really* energetic, but I have the vents shut off in here, so I thought maybe I was just having a flash or something. Then I noticed that the air in the kitchen wasn't all that cool, either. In fact, the whole downstairs was rather tropical rainforestesque. Upstairs was fine, though.
I checked the thermostat. Looked normal. I went outside and looked at the condenser, nothing. Checked the breaker, and it was blown, so I reset it. Just as I was walking back into the house, I heard it break over again.
Well, damn. I don't know what to do beyond that. So Sunday afternoon, I called the HVAC people (LOVE new home warranties!) and told them that we were ok to wait until Monday, but I wanted to make sure we weren't going to get pushed out any farther than that. The upstairs A/C has been doing a pretty good job of keeping the main part of the house livable, but our bedroom and especially bathroom were getting quite hot and moist. Opening the windows doesn't do much, since there's no cross ventilation.
Turns out the compressor has three prongs and one was touching the side of the condenser which was grounding out the system. Please don't explain all that to me, because all I really care about is that they will be coming back out tomorrow with a new compressor and replacing it FOR FREE. How it got like that and why it worked until now, I do not know, especially since the repair dude said he thought it was a manufacturing defect (Aside: We had an issue with the heat thingy in the attic in April, which was also a factory defect. Cursed, or just unlucky?) Like I said, I'm just happy this is just a minor inconvenience. Just thinking about this happening in, say, July, makes me sweat a little bit.
Posted by me at September 22, 2008 9:38 PM