The Joy of Home Ownership

We returned from San Antonio yesterday to a house atmospheric temperature of 95 degrees. The furnace fan was blowing, but only warm air flowed from the vents. I checked the condenser outside and it was turning but obviously not doing anything else of worth. Usually I can trip my breaker and reset everything, but repeated attempts were fruitless.

So I called some AC dudes. They came out, examined the condenser, and declared it DOA. Irreparable even. It had to be replaced.

Wifezilla and I have known for more than a year that we needed to replace not just the condenser, but the entire heating and cooling system. The furnace and blower are original to the house and our overall air flow is limp at best. The problem is that we've spent consecutive summers financing high-cost repairs to the house. Two years ago we replaced the roof and upstairs windows. Last summer we resided the house. Even though we knew the condenser was groaning ominous death-rattles, we had hoped it could hang on at least another year. But no.

So I had the AC dudes give us an estimate to replace the whole shebang. I've heard other estimates for this kind of work and though theirs was a bit higher, they offered a free year of financing and a life time warranty on both the furnace an the condenser. Best of all, they slapped the condenser in last evening so we could sleep under livable conditions. By five o'clock the house temperature had risen to 101 degrees. That's with all the windows open. It was actually cooler outside than inside our house. It took until midnight for the house to get back down under 80 degrees.

The crew returns this morning to replace the furnace, blower, and duct work. I guess the original furnace's installation was done half-ass, so they're going to fix that too and bring all the lines upstairs up to code.

Houston's forecast today? Sunny, with a high of 100 degrees.