The Heater/AC Saga

I have some stuff to catch up on, and it all seems to tie in together, but I’m going to try separating them out.  Let’s start with the first one.

When I got home from work Thursday almost two weeks ago, I quickly realized my heater wasn’t working.  It was only 69 in the condo, and I had it set to increase from 68 to 72 about an hour before I’d gotten home.  So the next day, I called a heater/AC company.  They suggested a couple of things they tried on Friday night, but it didn’t do any good.  They came out first thing Saturday morning, and within a few minutes determined that my compressor had gone out.  Honestly, that explains why my unit was taking so long to heat or cool my condo.  There were some days I wondered if it would ever turn off, so I knew it was coming.

The price was a shock.  However, since the compressor was half the cost of replacing the entire unit, I decided to go with that.  After all, the unit is probably original to my unit, so close to 35 years old.  They were able to come out and replace it on Tuesday.

However, as part of this upgrade, I wanted to upgrade my thermostat to one I can control remotely.  I found one I thought looked good, but it was cheaper from Amazon, significantly cheaper.  So I ordered it from them, thinking that I would be able to figure out how to install it myself.

Spoiler alert: I couldn’t.

My old one was battery powered, and my new ones needs to be connected to power.  I got that figured out, but I still didn’t quite have all the wires connected right.  Part of that is because I was trying to hook things up for the wrong kind of unit.  Anyway, I got things the way I thought they should be, turned the power back on to the unit, and I heard a hum from a transformer in the ceiling.  After some texts with the guy who installed the unit, his boss, the owner of the company, came out Sunday after church.  Yes, I had one of the wires wrong, but he also thought the thermostat itself might be defective.  So I ordered a replacement, and it has arrived.  Now, I just need to get them to come out to install it for me.

It’s going to cost me a bit more than if I had told them to buy me one and install it when they were already out on Tuesday.  I should know better than to try to do something like that myself.  It’s just not my gift.  However, I do feel better knowing it might not have been my incompetence causing the issues with the new thermostat.