Dodged a bullet

We were supposed to have huge storms last night. ("With hail to the size of ping-pong balls," one of the meteorologists prophesied. I, having spent my formative years watching "Captain Kangaroo" every morning, thought of Bunny Rabbit and his eternal practical joke...)

We did get horrible wind last night. There are dozens of small branches down in my yard, a neighbor's weeping willow split, and it looks like part of a sycamore down the street broke off and fell.

We also had a couple brief power outages. One of them happened WHILE the airconditioning unit was running, which I have learned is a Bad Thing. (Once, when the thing quit working - blown circuit or somesuch, I forget what it was but I had to get the HVAC dudes out to fix it - it was after it experienced a power outage while running (or perhaps it was the power surge when the power went back on).

I tried not to think too much of it and go back to sleep. Then I heard some funny sort of thumping noises.

Damn.

Yeah, something had happened to the AC unit. It wasn't running evenly, it was making noise, and it was not producing cool air. (I can check that by going and feeling of the vent in the bathroom - if the tiles in front of the vent don't feel cold on my bare feet while the AC is running, something's wrong.)

So I shut the thing down from the switch on the thermostat and thought about how on earth I would find time - with all the fieldwork - to get people out to fix it.

I slept badly for the rest of the night.

I got up, found out via e-mail that one of my research students may have a broken ankle (thrown from a horse, argle bargle). I called the other to see what her preference was...she remarked on the downed branches and speculated that the research area, if they had any branch losses, might be inaccessible until the roads were cleared. Also, there was a chance (well, there still is) of us getting another morning storm. (we haven't yet, but the sky is darkening)

So we decided to bail on research for today.

So I called the HVAC guys I use. Had to leave a message as they were not there yet for the day. Then I decided on a whim to try turning the breaker to the AC off, letting it sit, then turning everything back on to see if the noise was still happening. Kind of like rebooting a stuck computer.

But I also started cleaning. My house had got in a state and (a) I needed to clean it and (b) I can't stand having some workman out to the house without me at least making a PRETENSE of cleaning it. (Also, I clean while they're there, it's a "displacement behavior" to cover my distress over having strange people in my house)

I tried the power-down, power-back-up on the AC. It came on. Didn't make weird noises. Started blowing cold air.

I continued to clean and let it cycle a couple of times, gradually inching the thermostat back down to where I normally keep it (even though it was not TERRIBLY warm out, it had gotten up to 80 in the house during the time I had the AC off.)

So far, so good. I called my dad, who knows marginally more than I do about how these things work and he thought I should be safe - that the unit just needed to reset itself.

I still decided to accept the service call when the guys called back. I figured it was better to pay the charge of a service call and be safe, than to risk looking at buying a new AC unit later on this summer. (It's been incredibly hot here - like August hot - and the thing has been working hard since its last checkup).

They pronounced it good - nothing wrong with the electrical system, sufficient refrigerant. They did clean it, and clean out the drain, which I could have done, but at least that gave them something to do as part of the call. I don't feel bad about paying for a service call to hear that the unit is all right; I'd much rather have the peace of mind.

And I have a mostly-clean house. I'm done with the "public" rooms (well, other than the bathroom, which I'm going to tackle next), and then I'm going to do a little bit in my bedroom and the guest room.

If I work up the energy later on - after lunch - I have a chapter to evaluate for a textbook (which will more than pay the cost of the service call...)