Chilling Out

Remember how, on Tuesday, I mentioned how nice it is to have somewhere cool to come home to on these recent hot nights?

Well... I guess I spoke too soon. You see, our A/C apparently had a freon leak. So it started to not work so well on - you guessed it - Tuesday. We think it might have been failing for longer than that but that we just hadn't noticed because it wasn't as freakin' hot out as it has been this week.

But, no matter what, Tuesday and yesterday were both days when the house temp pretty much stayed around 80 degrees. We found that the air conditioner had some ice on it, so we turned the unit off last night so that it could melt, and then turned it back on this morning. That helped... at least a little. But it still meant that we went to bed with the house at about 80 degrees, and slept with fans aiming right at us as the bedroom gradually crept up to about 84 by morning.

Today I called around to see about finding someone to come by to do a diagnostic on our air conditioner. I used recommendations from our local Ace Hardware, so I knew I was going to get someone good.

The first place was nice enough, and offered to schedule someone to come out any time after 10am. On Monday. So I tried the next place.

Option #2 took a while to call us back, but they apologized for that (the guy was apparently working in a basement - so no cellular service), and suggested that one of the other technicians should be able to come by today. So I called the second tech who did, in fact, offer to come by any time after 4 this afternoon. I said that would be great, and then wrangled myself an "early release" from work.

Between 4 and 6, the pup and I hung out and chatted with the A/C tech. He poked and prodded the house's machinery. He found ice on our coils and melted it. He put in about half a pound more freon than he thought he would use. He swapped out our air filter for us (which we were supposed to have done about 2 weeks ago - and had already put the spare "on deck" for). And, eventually, he pointed out that the temp in the house was gradually dropping.

He also mentioned that this means we have a slow leak in our freon line. And that a new A/C unit is probably going to be in our future in the next few years. And then he left, saying that we should call him back if anything comes up.

I'm not planning to jinx anything this time. We've got his number on his card, and it's also in my cellphone. And as soon as I finish typing this, I plan to knock on wood. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same.