He joined me last night when my air conditioner, on the 2nd day of heat advisories with "feels like" temperatures reaching 107, decided it was done. The air conditioner was running yet no cool air was coming out. When I got home at 6:30ish, the temperature in my apartment was 82 degrees. Not that bad in the grand scheme of things...until I went upstairs. Oy. I consulted my handy resident manual and discovered that lack of air conditioning is considered a maintenance emergency if the outside temperature is higher than 75. Well, it was 77 when I left for work in the morning, so I'm pretty sure we hit that mark early on. I called and a very nice gentleman came to help me out.
It's frozen. The charge on the outside unit was low and has a slow leak causing the inside unit to become a block of ice. Fabulous. The filter was even frozen to the unit. Lovely. The machine would need time to thaw. So I brought my one fan downstairs and mellowed for about an hour during which the melting ice began to seep out from the unit creating protruding puddles in the kitchen. The fix-it guy returned after a bit to charge the outside unit and get me up and running again. I was on the phone with a dear friend, watching this man come in and out of my kitchen with an increasingly puzzled look on his face.
'I won't be able to fix it tonight,' he says. There is something seriously wrong with the outside unit. 'I'm going to bring you a portable unit. I'll be back.'
And back he came, with Wall-E in tow. We had to stuff a towel in the window to complete Wall-E's connection because he "is missing some parts." Wall-E is quite large and mighty, yet he can only cool the downstairs.....so.........slumber party!!!
After finished my conversation with a dear friend, and another conversation with my Mom, I took a shower and settled down in my living room, sleeping on my futon mattress pulled on the floor, Wall-E and Lucy at my feet.
Lucy wasn't too sure about Wall-E at first. Watching her through this whole process was quite entertaining actually. So curious. And hopefully by the time I get home tonight she will have bid Wall-E goodbye and the air conditioning unit will be restored.
I am grateful for the quick response and creative thinking of the on-call repair man. I appreciate how helpful he was knowing very much what it is to be on-call. And, I welcome the adventure, counting my blessings as I did go to sleep in a cool room when the outside temperature remained a still-stifling 83 degrees. Thanks Wall-E. Good to know you for a time.
1 comment:
Same thing happened to us last year, only it wasn't quite this hot. It was pretty miserable and Kaitlin and I spent a couple afternoons at the pool until it was fixed. I hope they get it fixed soon so you can sleep in your bed!
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