Of Heat Warnings and Air Conditioners by Konnie Enos

 

Like much of the United States, we have had severe heat warnings around here all week.

Our daughter, who lives in Oregon has complained about how hot it is and the fact their small window unit is not sufficient to cool their small apartment. Most days when I talk to her, our granddaughter is running around in just a diaper.

Living in an arid desert, as we do, I hadn’t been paying attention to the temps. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but around here winter is in December/January. Spring is usually February (that extreme cold snap in February of 2018 threw us). By March we are starting to get those warmer temps and the air conditioner becomes necessary. Those temps usually last through October. November is fall. July and August are the hottest months of the year so we expect them in the triple digits, daily.

Sever heat warning means it’s over 110 degrees. Sunday we hit that and they’re not expecting us to get below it until next Sunday. In fact, for the first time that I can remember, we got an automated call from the electric company asking us to conserve power between 2 and 9 p.m. Thankfully we have solar panels and, with plenty of sunshine, they’re working great.

Since everywhere you go around here is air-conditioned, even the cars, I’m never out in the heat for longer than it takes me to get in or out of the car and back into air conditioning. In other words, I haven’t noticed the temps beyond my husband commenting on it when he’d pick me up from work, during the hottest part of the day.

Now, despite the temps, our system can keep our house comfortable normally.

Sometime in the last few weeks, our youngest started complaining that our indoor temp was not staying as low as we like. Monday some of his siblings joined him in pointing out that our thermostat was set for one temperature but our indoor temps were several degrees higher and rising.

Now, this is a cause for concern. Nobody wants their air conditioner to expire in the middle of a heatwave.  We voiced our apprehensions to my husband.

What did Jerry do?

Well first, he listened to the outside part of our unit. Then he decided he needed to inspect the unit in our attic.

Now, this in itself is a production because the only access to the attic is through our daughter’s bedroom ceiling. And the first issue wasn’t getting a ladder. It was having someone (my husband refused to disturb her himself) knock on her door and let her know what Jerry needed to do.

Before long he has hauled his ladder into said daughter’s room and he climbed up into the attic.

I wasn’t at all sure what he thought he could do, but while he was checking things out I started the processes of contacting our HVAC company.

Now they’d come to do their regular service on our unit in early March and said someone would have to come back and finish the job.

I’m not sure if they were just really busy or it was because COVID hit, but they never came back and my husband hadn’t been able to get in touch with anyone there. He left messages but they never called back.

I had no better luck until I tried the company’s online site and the chatbot there. Before long I was talking to a person and they set up an appointment for the next day (Tuesday).

This would have been great, but my husband had decided our system was going out, yet again.

How does he deal with such things?

HE TURNED IT OFF! In the middle of a heatwave!

Monday was a very uncomfortable night for sleeping around here.

My husband did get a couple more large fans and placed all the ones we have throughout the house and going full bore yesterday but it still did not get the temperature to comfortable levels.

Thankfully the guys from our HVAC company finally arrived yesterday evening. They at least got the air conditioner back on. Between that and our fans still going we’ve been able to slowly bring the temp back down to a comfortable level. And they’re covering the repairs because it was their lack of service which caused the issue. (Yeah for that because we’re talking a couple of thousand dollars.)

How are the rest of you dealing with the heat?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.