For the past couple weeks I’ve read about other bloggers experiencing A/C outages during this heat wave. I’ve felt bad for those people, and as I click away from their blog I think, “Thank heavens that’s not us.”
Ha!
We have two-zone hvac, and today the unit on the main floor of our house gave out. It sprung a small leak at the unit in the garage, and the fan outside came to a complete stop. Since we are completely unfamiliar with the inner workings of an HVAC unit (especially one that is 10 years old but looks 50 years old), we opted to call one of our friends from church who works in the HVAC biz. He only sells units, but was able to recommend a good HVAC specialist who could come out. So we called and lucked out – he’s coming tomorrow at 9 a.m. to have a look at it. We’re praying that the fix is an easy and cheap one (as in “oh, look, this screw holding up this flange broke – once a new one is installed you’ll be all set and the unit should work – don’t worry about a bill, since it’s just a screw I’d feel bad charging you anything.”)
The great thing is that with the dual zone system, our house is still pretty reasonable. Downstairs it is hovering at 80 degrees, which is tolerable with the fan on and the lights dimmed to bare minimum. And upstairs it’s nice and frosty – hover at 73 degrees and quite comfortable. If it had been the other way around – upstairs hot, downstairs cool, we’d all be sleeping downstairs tonight.
Not ones to let it get us down, Denis spent a good two hours outside continuing to dig out the ivy in the front. He did a GREAT job and I’d say we have less than 1/4 of it to go. He got out two more of the bushes and we trimmed a couple of the larger greenery bushes that we’re keeping.
We got into a conversation with our neighbor’s son, who happens to be a landscaper of sorts, and he confirmed that dwarf azaleas should do quite well in front, despite being full sun. He emphasized they should be dwarf azaleas. Denis also bought a couple more bags of the rubber mulch – we’ve decided to buy a bag a week until we have the amount we’ll need for the front.
And just in case you think my HVAC cost scenario is laughable, have I told you about the time that I was driving from DC to NC and made a pitstop in Charlottesville, VA because whenever I braked my entire back end of the car would fishtail out of control? It was at a time I was completely broke for ANY kind of money (example: for a while I sold my CD collection to pay my Visa bill), and I was freaking out. Took my car to a random mechanic, who said he’d get the car back to me in the morning if he could. I crashed at my friend’s house (it helped to have the majority of rave pals going to UVA at the time) and in the morning I got a ride to the garage for the bad news. He met me outside with a huge grin on his face. “You’re gonna love me,” he said. He presented the bill. For $37.
Turns out, a SINGLE SCREW underneath my car was holding the back end to the front end. That screw broke and the ONLY THING holding my car together was the outer metal frame. Thus the fishtailing as the back attempted to break free for good whenever I braked. The mechanic put in a new screw, and my car was fixed. Just like that.
So yes, I’m quite hopeful that this HVAC problem will be a cheap fix.