There's no A/C in Hell

I'm pretty sure there's no A/C in Hell

 

 

A year ago (in May ironically) we returned from a long weekend trip with my Mom to find our house was uncomfortably stuffy.  I checked the thermostat and it was supposed to be 76* inside, instead it was 83*.  Of course I was only a little uncomfortable to begin with, but after "seeing" the temperature I automatically felt warmer.  I was freaking out thinking our 2yr old A/C unit had died. 

 

 

The Problem:

 

The thermostat was set to 76*, but the temp inside was 83*.  I turned it OFF, then back ON..and nothing.  I had Hardy go stand outside on our patio to see if he heard the unit click and it never did.  I turned it OFF/ON about a million times to no avail.  Hardy and I know nothing about HVAC and we aren't handy by default, so generally when anything goes awry we call his Dad or my step dad for advice.  We have a Honeywell thermostat, so of course I jumped on their website to try and find the manual.  It said to take the thermostat off the wall for 5mins to allow it to re-set itself.  I did so, but still nothing.  All this time our actual A/C would not turn on, but the fan would still work (meaning air was coming out of the vents, but it wasn't cooled).  After an hour of research, I gave up and we went to bed.  Luckily we have electricity, so I could run my ceiling fan and box fan to help keep the bedroom semi-cool. 

 

The next morning I did a lot of GOOGLING and some websites said our compressor was shot, others said to take the thermostat off the wall, change the batteries and place it back on the wall (that should re-set the system), my step dad suggested ants in the outside unit and a guy that works on our A/C stuff at work said to check the drip pan in the attic for water, incase it had frozen.

 

The Solution:

 

So I checked for ants, I checked for puddled water and nothing...nada.  My last step was changing the batteries.  For what felt like the millionth time, I took the thermostat off the wall, replaced the batteries and snapped it back in place, then turned the A/C ON and VOILA!  The A/C turned on and you could hear our unit running outside...and cool air was coming through our vents.  I started laughing hysterically - really, NEW BATTERIES IS ALL THAT WAS NEEDED!?!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!  So we called every one who had offered help and explained what we did, no one understood it...I can't blame them.  Even though I'm still not a licensed HVAC technician, I couldn't see how batteries in a thermostat could really cause the A/C not to come on, but whatever.

 

 

Now let's fast forward to last night....it wasn't until about 7pm or so I noticed it was kind of toasty, I checked the thermostat and sure enough, it was supposed to be 76*, but the temp was reading 86* - AHHHHH!!! I thought I would be real slick and immediately changed the batteries.  Ha that was a joke, because this time it didn't work.  I resorted to turning it OFF/ON again and had Hardy stand outside to listen for the unit to 'click', no go.  This time too I noticed the COOL ON light was blinking and after about 5mins it stopped blinking and the fan would kick on.  I didn't want to go to bed pissed off, because I was already getting hot, so I just decided to leave it as is and hoped it would magically fix itself while we slept.  Of course Hardy thought this time he would "help" and when he came upstairs, he said he set it to 69* so that "When that bastard decides to turn on, it'll have to work hard"....umm ok Hardy, real smart.  I went downstairs and changed it back to 76*, trying to explain to him that it's already in the 80's and it's going to have to work to drop 10 degrees anyway, let's not over do it. 

 

I woke up this morning and kept thinking I heard the A/C turn on, but it was always just the fan - which is better than nothing...but it's not straight up COOL air, so it doesn't feel that great when you're trying to get ready for work.  I decided to leave our ceiling fans on (I always do anyway) so the cats won't suffocate and I turned the thermostat off when we left this morning, I'm hoping 8hrs of NOT working will help put it into working mode again...we shall see.

 

WISH US LUCK!!