It has been gradually warming over the last few days, the first test of the air conditioner of the new season. By Thursday it was clear it was completely on the fritz. We could tell we had some sort of problem last week, which we'd been able to resolve temporarily by switching from "auto" mode to "cool" or vice versa. We started getting concerned when we couldn't find a working phone number for the folks we bought the system from. Fortunately our church maintenance folks had a way to get hold of them, as they'd put in the system there, too. We first called on Wednesday, finding out that the guy who'd sold us the system wasn't working with the company full time anymore, was in fact doing another kind of primary work, and the guy who'd taken over his accounts wasn't able to get to us, but we weren't sure how big a problem we had as of yet. Wednesday evening things started heating up, and it got hotter in the house than it should have, so by yesterday morning when the house didn't even cool down overnight, we definitely knew we had a problem. When we called the guy back, he said he was working his way back toward this part of town and would stop by in the afternoon. By the time he got here it was mid-80's in the house. Of course, we lived with this sort of thing all the time when we were kids, but with big window fans to pull air through and keep things ventilated if not exactly cool.
My wife had been making the phone calls to this point, but I wanted to be here to hear what the problem was, so left work a little early. My aunt had arrived yesterday morning, and it was a good excuse to cut a few minutes from the end of the work day to spend more of the evening with her, anyway. On my way home, my wife called to let me know he was leaving without it being fixed. Fortunately I have a very short commute, and I was almost there.
He pulled me aside and explained that we have "a really high-end system." We knew that because of the great deal we'd gotten on it the previous year, and had no idea that would ever be a negative feature! But he didn't have the proper equipment to troubleshoot it on his truck, he explained, not needing to also mention that he clearly lacked much familiarity with it, as well. He would get back in touch with the guy who sold us the system, and he assured me that they'd be back the next day. Going back into the house, I saw that he disabled even the limited cooling capacity we'd been trying to take advantage of, which I understood was to prevent further damage to the system. It was a good thing that we'd already had plans to be out the rest of the evening. We set up a box fan in the window to pull some fresh air through, and proceeded with our plans. Fortunately it was cool enough with low enough humidity to keep things from becoming so uncomfortable as to have much of a negative effect on our sleep.
This morning I kept checking with my wife to see if she'd heard more from him, and though she'd tried to call a couple times, she hadn't been able to reach him. I was now beginning to panic, as in addition to my aunt visiting we had my sister-in-law and her husband coming into town the next day, as well as dear friends passing back through on their way home to Nebraska. We have a get together - a sort of "non-birthday" party for Teri - planned for tomorrow afternoon and evening, and with the forecast high temperatures I could see the whole thing falling apart into a hot, miserable sauna. Home for lunch, I grabbed the phone number and decided to call back from work, just in case the guy was ducking my wife's calls for some reason. He answered on the second ring, and his rapid speech when I told him who I was somewhat confirmed my concern, but only a little. He explained that he was still trying to get with the guy who sold us the system and promised me that he'd be back before the end of the day. Still, he'd given my wife the impression the previous afternoon that he might have difficulty getting parts if he needed them before the weekend. I was afraid he was going to come back, troubleshoot for five minutes to isolate the problem, then leave us broken the entire holiday weekend with a house full of company until being able to get parts on Tuesday.
Instead, true to his word, he showed up around the end of the day with two other guys, and they figured out what was wrong. There was a part that was stuck but not broken, which they were able to restore to normal operation, at least for cooling. It should probably be replaced in the long term, but that won't be a problem at least until we need to switch back to heat pump mode. Phew. By the time we got back from dinner the house was much cooler, and by bedtime everything is pretty well back to normal.
Again, phew! But I'm still not entirely convinced that purchasing this 23-SEER unit was such a good idea, even with the great deal we got on it!
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