and still waiting

The new unit is in, it's been hooked up, but apparently an Orifice may be Plugged (when they first turned it on, the compressor made the most God-awful high pitched hum that made me despair that I'd ever be able to use my living room while the thing ran, but apparently that's related to the Plugged Orifice). And a coil on the inside unit may need to be changed, apparently it's freezing up. Head Guy has been called and he's on his way.

I sincerely hope this can get sorted out today (or, failing that, that they're willing to come out tomorrow and work); Monday is one of my long teaching days and it's supposed to be in the mid 90s and humid this weekend and argh I don't want to spend the weekend holed up in my bedroom.

Everything in an old house is effortful. Old houses are nice in that they don't have the tiny warren like rooms (where the builder tries to cram four bedrooms in a small footprint) and in that they have generous windows (some of the more recently built houses I've seen, in the name of energy efficiency, wind up being awfully dark inside, and not having natural light depresses me). But there's so much that's kludged up in an old house over the years, and so many things that can go wrong during a re-installation.

First the water heater - all kinds of code updates, the thing sits up on a plinth instead of down on the floor like the old one did. Then the dishwasher that almost didn't fit in the space because whoever the foolish person was who decided white ceramic tile was a dandy kitchen floor covering* put it in AFTER the old dishwasher. Now this. And another future thing, if I plan to stay here fore presumably-the-rest-of-my-life is rewiring part of the house to get rid of the old wiring that could pose a hazard (and also get three-prong plugs for those places).

(*It isn't. Three bad things about it: (a) if you drop ANYTHING heavy, it will crack it. I have several cracked tiles but I can't be bothered to go to the effort of replacing them. (b) It gets very slick when it's wet - bad idea in both kitchens and bathrooms (the other room with ceramic tile). And (c) it shows every blasted bit of crumbs, shed hair, spilt tea, grease.....everything. I could scrub it daily and it still wouldn't look clean enough. That's *white* though more than ceramic.

Also, a student with some building experience tells me ceramic tile is a bad choice in post-and-beam houses, because they are designed to "flex" a little with drying and wetting of the soil, and that can crack the grout - something I have seen happen).

Again, if I had more energy for having big life disruption (no kitchen or bathroom for at least a couple days), I'd get someone in to remove all the danged ceramic tile and put down, I don't know, linoleum or something.)


Added: well, crap. What I predicted. They have to order a new coil and it will be Tuesday. They're loaning me a window unit for the weekend for my living room but dangit. Again, this is Old House Problems. Sigh.

I'm just ready to be done with replacing and fixing crap in this house. Of course, I never will be, that's the issue with houses.

Then again, apartments are worse: you get a loud neighbor, you're screwed. The people who own the building decide to go condo and you can't afford the buy-in, you're screwed. They people running the place decide you have too many books, you're screwed.