Electrical mishap brings week without AC
The first day of summer is still several weeks away, June 21, but here in Alabama, things are already starting to heat up.
So naturally it’s the time when my air conditioner would break.
Monday morning as the temperature outside began to rise, the James air conditioner didn’t kick on. It got warmer and warmer outside – and inside.
Something had to be done – and fast.
My father-in-law is the kind of man who knows a little bit about everything, so he took a peek inside the unit. “It looks like your motor is fried,” he said.
Fantastic.
Now, our AC is fully 2.5 years old – not exactly old enough to have a fried motor. But nevertheless, it’s 75 … 76 … 77 degrees inside my house and rising. We keep it cold around here, so 77 degrees versus our typical 68-69 is drastic.
It’s Thursday by the time we do our research and figure out what our next step should be. We finally decided to have Glasgow come out to our house to rescue us from the heat wave – but there was to be more bad news before good news.
“You’ve got about 300 volts of electricity coming into your house.”
I don’t know what that means.
“Well, that’s about 60 too many.”
Oh. And?
“I am going to cut the electricity to the whole house, and you’re going to need to get the power company out here to do something about it before I can replace that AC motor.”
Oh.
Drat.
It takes a little pleading, but I finally get the power company to come out the same day to figure out this voltage situation. I have no electricity in my house, I tell them. You have to do something. I mean, the food in my refrigerator is going to spoil. My chocolate truffles are getting all melty in the pantry.
Actually, that part was pretty great.
When it came down to it, the power company had to replace the transformer, which maybe got struck by lightning – or who knows.
Wonder of wonders, once the electricity problem had been corrected, the AC began working again. It wasn’t an issue with the motor at all.
So everything is cool again – literally.
