Fixing the Air Conditioner

[livingdeb]

It took teamwork to fix our air conditioner.  Real teamwork is a rare thing for me--usually it involves the one competent person doing all the work.  Or each person does their own part, but the total is not greater than the sum of the parts.  That's real teamwork, but doesn't feel magical like this episode, so now you get to read about it.

Robin - Came home first, turned on the A/C, noticed it wasn't working.  I am unlikely to have noticed such a thing had I come home first--I'm generally pretty comfortable in the house even at 81 degrees.

Both of us independently - Noticed that the circuit breaker was not thrown.

Debbie (and maybe Robin also) - Noticed that the outside unit seemed to be working and the thermostat seemed to be working, but no air was coming out of the vents.

Robin - Realized that this means that you have to turn off the A/C or you risk freezing it.  So we turned it off.

Debbie - Did some reading in repair books; decided it was a problem with the blower (which is the fan on the indoor unit, as opposed to the fan in the outdoor unit which is called the fan).

Robin - Called a repair guy.

Debbie - Googled the problem and concluded that it might be an internal breaker in the blower which you can fix by turning off the AC, turning off the breaker to the AC, turning the breaker back on, waiting 15 - 30 minutes, and turning the A/C back on.  This would re-set the internal circuit breaker.

Robin (home early to meet the repair guy) - We had already done all that but the last part, so he turned on the A/C.

Repair guy - Showed us that our blower switch is actually on the outside of the indoor unit.  It's that switch I sometimes accidentally flip when I'm looking for the attic fan switch, and it's the thing that looks like part of the doorbell to Robin.  The repair guy flipped that switch and charged us nothing because, according him, we had already figured out the problem before he got there.  Not true--he was a vital part of the team effort.

Cake of the Day

Comments

[fraeuleinchen.livejournal.com]

How awesome that you each played a role! You're both smart people, and you seem to have called a smart, charitable A/C repair guy.

And hooray for helpful repair people! A special thanks to those who love helping people even if it means they don't make money on every call.

I've had lots of experience with repair and service folks lately, and realize that a big part of their work is education of their customers. They are a patient folk (well, many of them are), and I'm so grateful for the good ones.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Is a big part of their work educating us? I always feel like I'm encroaching by a) distracting them from doing their job as quickly as possible and b) deliberately reducing the number of calls they get from us because we'll know how to do more things ourselves. But, as you say, many seem happy to educate us. Yea!