Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Ouuuur House...is falling apart

Pictures at KodakGallery.com

Sing it now! "ouuuuur house, is a very very very fine house..." :)

Now, our house is fine, but it is definitely not without problems. Rachel and I have been through quite an ordeal the past few weeks due to the AC unit in the attic. Here's the story:
After about 4 weeks living in our new home, I came home and the air conditioning was not on in the house. The wall unit that sets the temperature said it was on, but it was much hotter in the house than where I have it set. So I went into the attic to find that the drain pan was full of water and the automatic shut-off was cutting off the unit -- I also noticed a large note on the side of the unit that read "If there is excessive water in the drip pan, unit may not be functioning properly". The next day I called the AC company that installed the unit, and they sent a guy out to look at it. He told me the drain was just clogged and he took care of the problem.

Jump forward 3 weeks later, and the unit shut off again due to the drain pan being filled. I called the AC people again, and again they sent a guy to look at it. This time he said he didn't know what was wrong with it, but he did something (in hindsight it was probably nothing) and it shouldn't happen again.

Now we move forward just 3 days to a Saturday. This time, it doesn't shut off...it just continues to run as the drip pan overflows, causing water to leak through the ceiling. The automatic shutoff that was attached to the unit stopped working. Called AC people, guy comes, he puts a new automatic shutoff on and says that someone else is coming out that Wednesday to replace the coil or something inside the unit and hopefully that'll fix the excessive dripping. That Wednesday, guy replaces coils, everything seems great.

Moving on to that Sunday, Father's Day, I walk down the stairway to see what looks like a stream of light coming through a window shining onto the wall. I think to myself that this seems odd being there are no windows near the stairway. Observing more closely, I touch what looks like the shining light...its water....running down the wall...coming from where the ceiling raises up the stairs....from right behind where the AC unit sits in the attic.

Immediately I shut off the AC and call everyone I can think of...AC guys, their cell phones, the builder's cell phone. No one returns my call until Monday...at which point the walls look like this:

And now, after a weekend of having no AC, our walls are all removed and we await new drywall being put up.