A Day Without A/C

The first thing Hubby said this morning was that the a/c was not working.  What?  Maybe I had misheard.  He muttered something about it probably being frozen and we would run the fan to see if it would start working again.  Ok, I could deal with that.  The morning wasn't that hot, yet.

We got around and the fan continued to run and the temperature in the house continued to climb.  I got into offensive mode and began closing the thermal curtains to keep the heat from penetrating into the house.  Warned the kids not to open doors leading outside, turned on all the ceiling fans to high to circulate air, etc. 

Slowly the temperature crept upward.  78, 79, 80, 81 degrees Fahrenheit it rose.  Alright, kids were getting cranky and I needed to run errands.  At least it would be cool in the van and at the store.  Off we went and Hubby called the a/c repairman.

When we returned from errands, the temperature in the house was a lovely 87 degrees.  Yuck!  The repairman couldn't come until later this afternoon.  The heat index outside was rising and expected to get around 105 degrees.  The dogs and cat looked at me in puzzlement, why isn't it cool in here?

Top temperature is inside the house.  Bottom temperature is outside in the shade!  This is at 1 pm.

I wasn't sure if we would make it until the repairman came, so I scoured the garage for one of our old window a/c units.  We have three, but two of the units are so heavy I cannot lift them by myself.  I found the light one (relatively speaking) and muscled it into the house.

Old, but still works!

I placed it in the living room window and plugged it into wall outlet.  I crossed my fingers and turned it on.  It blew out dust and cold air!  The children and I sat down and enjoyed the cool breeze.  The dogs found their spots where the air hit them and went to sleep.  We read the rest of Little Man's chapter book on the Olympics as the room cooled. 

In an hour, the house temperature had dropped a few degrees.  We were still hot, so off to the pool we went.  The a/c repairman showed later and said we had a bad capacitor.  Within fifteen minutes, he had it replaced and cool air began blowing from the vents.  Life is back to normal.

(I know that we had a minor inconvenience and that many live without the luxury of a/c.  It is one of those things that when you have it, you miss it greatly when it is gone.  We could have gotten by with our window units, and we told the a/c repairman there was not rush.  Others may have greater needs for his service today.  He was able to get by before the end of the day and for that we are thankful.)