by Kimberly A. Cook (Twitter@ WarriorTales)
Have you ever diapered a heat pump? My aging heat pump/air conditioning unit decided to die on Friday. At about 101 degrees outside. I knew this because the house got warm and there was water/fluid leaking from the furnace. The unit had been limping the last two hot weekends, but in the full August heat wave it decided to officially croak.
This was not my first rodeo with this piece of equipment. Over the years my “unit” has done such fun things as ice up and sound like a Huey helicopter landing in my bedroom and pee through my kitchen ceiling into the silverware holder in the sink.
I’ve hooked up a gravity drain using aquarium tubing and a bucket to catch water from the heat pump that would have impressed NASA.
One winter weekend the drain pipe froze so I had to switch to emergency heat for two days, which caused my electric bill to surpass the national debt.
Since the unit had been limping along, luckily I’d made an appointment with heat pump fix-it guy for Friday morning. He showed up and gave me one last possibility to cure the aging unit’s peeing problems. Most folks had a 75 percent success rate with the fix.
“You’ll know right away,” he assured me. Yup. Saturday morning the diaper (towel) was wet. My unit was a 25 percenter. Heat pump guy told me to “shut it down” if that happened, because I didn’t need to be breathing chemical laden air. Sigh.
This all happened because the “unit” overhead me talking about replacing it. I’m positive. Its lasted longer than most of the ones in my complex, but its been a challenging relationship.
After the first two leaking through the kitchen ceiling episodes, the HVAC wizards were sure they’d fixed it. I had the ceiling repaired and repainted.
The “unit” then decided to freeze the drain line again and once again water poured from my kitchen ceiling. So I left the three foot long opening the width of drywall seam tape, complete with the fancy sagging of the textured ceiling plaster.
Entertained the idea of using white duct tape to cover the gap, but most visitors don’t notice it since no one looks up. It’s my own personal art installation.
So now I have appointments with the ductless guys and the electric furnace guys. We shall see who wins my favor. I long for the days of working air conditioning, cozy heat and a fixed kitchen ceiling and no heat pump diapers.
A girl can dream can’t she?
P.S. In the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal. My heart goes out to the people in Louisiana who would love to have just a leak in their ceiling. Let’s hope for a much better September for all those deserving folks.
Kim,
Soon as I retired, I was taking a nap one afternoon and heard a big sound across the hallway – thinking someone was breaking in (though this has never happened) – I looked in the bedroom across the hall & found ceiling fixture dangling from ceiling and water coming down from rain… roof problems! Never replaced the roof in the decades I’ve lived here…
Anyway, went to the bank to get a loan for roof & lady said you might want more in case your furnace goes… I had not mentioned furnace or any other possibility to her… anyway, about two days later – very cold dip in weather – no heat… had put in gas furnace & AC system 27 years prior – called repair man and he said there were three breaks in the catalytic heater and by law he had to dis-mantel it as was probably putting out CO@ and lucky my little dog and I didn’t pass on – no CO2 detector down there in the dug out space under the house (now is) –
Anyway – I spent over a month without heat (other than 5 space heaters) – deliberating on taking the big step and did it – put in geothermal – cost a fortune but I am almost off fossil fuels – they put in long pipes about 30 ft underground through an acre of field – system uses water & a new heat pump to heat and AC – you still need a new gas furnace as geothermal is not meant to run when temps drop down to 32, etc. – anyway, cost an absolute fortune ($18,000) – but gas heating & AC costs are way down. You can also hear a pin drop as is very quiet. I used a company called Geonomics, owned by a guy named Nick, in case you want to explore it. You don’t have to have a lot of land necessarily. I would not have taken the leap except there is a $2,000/yr deduction on federal tax and $700/yr for state. In Oregon vets hardly have to pay any taxes once they retire so I gave the state rebate to my son.
Take care –
also am only now getting a new roof (starting tomorrow) as had to save up – water heater also went out after retirement and am going w/o until can get on demand system….
Been meaning to tell you Liz Eagan passed away sometime ago – liver problems – I see Nancy Ronan about once a month – she came out for Mexican food last week. She has a horrific job, sees 20 patients a day – works basically from 3 am to 9 pm in order to do the paper work. Too much for someone 62 yrs old or anyone for that matter. 100 new patients a month! Her daughter works in Hollywood, literally – she shoots film for The Libarians here in Portland.
Try to stay cool!
Ann
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