Adventures in air conditioning
When Darkclaw was here in late March, I made a call to my Home Warranty company to come look at my A/C unit. I had turned it on during a very warm day, and it took over two hours for the compressor to kick in. So, the contracted repair company came out when I was at work, and Darkclaw oversaw the visit (and gave them the co-pay check). They basically said the coils were dirty and (eventually) cleaned them. Said the unit was about 10 years old, as well.
This past Monday, the weather took another warm turn, so I decided to test out the A/C again. Ahh, blessed cool air.... for a couple of hours or so. In the evening, I noticed that my compressor wasn't on, even though the temperature was around 7 degrees higher than the set temp (in preparation for sleep, I turn the heat down a bit). Le sigh. I called my Warranty company back, and they set me up with a different repair company for this morning... no co-pay as the work has a 60-day guarantee. (woo!)
This morning, my boss allowed me to stay home for the repair visit. The poor repair guy was way out of town when they gave him my address, so he was a bit late. No worries, I said. He took a look at the thermostat, then traipsed outside to look at the unit itself. Opening the smallish outside breaker box next to the unit, he exclaimed in shocked surprise and leapt about halfway across my yard.
So, *after* I cleared out the partially-completed wasp's nest from the breaker box (oy vey).... *coughs*
Anyhoo... yes. The repair guy took out the breaker switch and removed the panels from the A/C unit (with me standing guard over him with my bugkiller spray). It's kinda half-amusing when the first thing he says is along the lines of, "wow, what the heck is going on in here" in reference to the wiring and general setup. Yikes.
After some wire study, playing with the breaker (yes, the fan turns on. No, the compressor doesn't turn on.), and using the neato volt-o-meter probes, he determined that the 240 volts were not actually traveling through the thermostat switch to get *to* the compressor. The swtich moved, but the current didn't. So. New switch FTW.
(this is all while we had a few wasp/bee scares that caused one or the other (or both) of us to jump, yell, and run in fear, and asking lots of questions about my half-assed installed unit, and the tech's low opinion of the last repair person who came out and had no clue what they were doing...)
THEN, the wonderful guy did a diagnostic test on the compressor itself, checking the temperature, freon level, and airflow of the unit. I was *low* on freon (and why didn't the last guys catch that two weeks ago?). He taped up the venting, reinstalled the panels (with new screws so now there are the correct number), and doublechecked the airflow/temperature.
He was going to charge me the co-pay, but didn't as I reminded him this was a re-service call from less than three weeks ago. I asked him (twice, but the freon thing was added later) what the call would have cost regularly. He said the part, labor, freon, and diagnostics would have cost between $550-600. (Added to the "cleaning from two weeks ago for $240, that's a BIG chunk o' change!) I paid my $60 co-pay. Once.
The moral of this story? HOME WARRANTIES ARE COMPLETELY WORTH THE COST, especially when buying an older home (that was abandoned and trashed and fixed half-assedly). My current warranty has paid for itself about 3-4 times over at this point, and it still has some months to go.
And wasps? There's a lovely TREE you can build your nest in. Please stop trying to build nests AGAINST my house... every couple feet. And not in the shed. No. Not in the shed! No, the front porch railing is NOT a good wasp nest location. Just. Stoppit.
This entry was originally posted at http://tyrrlin.dreamwidth.org/360952.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
This past Monday, the weather took another warm turn, so I decided to test out the A/C again. Ahh, blessed cool air.... for a couple of hours or so. In the evening, I noticed that my compressor wasn't on, even though the temperature was around 7 degrees higher than the set temp (in preparation for sleep, I turn the heat down a bit). Le sigh. I called my Warranty company back, and they set me up with a different repair company for this morning... no co-pay as the work has a 60-day guarantee. (woo!)
This morning, my boss allowed me to stay home for the repair visit. The poor repair guy was way out of town when they gave him my address, so he was a bit late. No worries, I said. He took a look at the thermostat, then traipsed outside to look at the unit itself. Opening the smallish outside breaker box next to the unit, he exclaimed in shocked surprise and leapt about halfway across my yard.
So, *after* I cleared out the partially-completed wasp's nest from the breaker box (oy vey).... *coughs*
Anyhoo... yes. The repair guy took out the breaker switch and removed the panels from the A/C unit (with me standing guard over him with my bugkiller spray). It's kinda half-amusing when the first thing he says is along the lines of, "wow, what the heck is going on in here" in reference to the wiring and general setup. Yikes.
After some wire study, playing with the breaker (yes, the fan turns on. No, the compressor doesn't turn on.), and using the neato volt-o-meter probes, he determined that the 240 volts were not actually traveling through the thermostat switch to get *to* the compressor. The swtich moved, but the current didn't. So. New switch FTW.
(this is all while we had a few wasp/bee scares that caused one or the other (or both) of us to jump, yell, and run in fear, and asking lots of questions about my half-assed installed unit, and the tech's low opinion of the last repair person who came out and had no clue what they were doing...)
THEN, the wonderful guy did a diagnostic test on the compressor itself, checking the temperature, freon level, and airflow of the unit. I was *low* on freon (and why didn't the last guys catch that two weeks ago?). He taped up the venting, reinstalled the panels (with new screws so now there are the correct number), and doublechecked the airflow/temperature.
He was going to charge me the co-pay, but didn't as I reminded him this was a re-service call from less than three weeks ago. I asked him (twice, but the freon thing was added later) what the call would have cost regularly. He said the part, labor, freon, and diagnostics would have cost between $550-600. (Added to the "cleaning from two weeks ago for $240, that's a BIG chunk o' change!) I paid my $60 co-pay. Once.
The moral of this story? HOME WARRANTIES ARE COMPLETELY WORTH THE COST, especially when buying an older home (that was abandoned and trashed and fixed half-assedly). My current warranty has paid for itself about 3-4 times over at this point, and it still has some months to go.
And wasps? There's a lovely TREE you can build your nest in. Please stop trying to build nests AGAINST my house... every couple feet. And not in the shed. No. Not in the shed! No, the front porch railing is NOT a good wasp nest location. Just. Stoppit.
This entry was originally posted at http://tyrrlin.dreamwidth.org/360952.html. Please comment there using OpenID.