Repairs

Don't you love when you have a project that is costing you money and then you have unexpected things come up that cost even more money? We have had two this week.

Well, actually, one was unexpected and the other was more routine maintenance that has been put off for the last 5 years. The routine maintenance was on the lawn mower. We've had it for about 5 years and haven't done anything to it except for adding the gas and rinsing the underside off after every cut to keep the grass build up at bay. I've wanted it serviced for the last couple years at least. On Saturday (even though it was windy and quite cold) I decided it was time to mow the lawn.

After the last cut in late fall it continued to stay warm and the grass continued to grow. I remember in early December seeing that the grass seemed taller than it should be, I mentioned to Jon that he should mow the lawn. He half-laughed and then adamantly said, "I am NOT mowing the lawn in December." So when I tried to mow the lawn last weekend, first I couldn't start it, then the back wheels kept locking, the self-propelled system was not nearly as sensitive as it once was, and it kept stalling out on me like I was mowing a foot of wet grass instead of just a few inches of dry, dead grass.

So on Monday I managed to load it into the back of the van and take it to a repair place. Of course, it is their busy season and they would need at least 4 days. I'm still waiting to hear from them. I'm kinda nervous about how much it's going to cost since they said that it would cost around $50 plus any parts. It'll be worth it, though, if I can have a lawn mower that works like it did when it was new!

Now for the unexpected cost. Several days ago it got quite warm outside and by late afternoon it had gotten uncomfortably warm in the house. I was busy and getting overheated and finally decided to give in and turn on the a/c for the first time this year. Nothing happened. I switched it to just the fan part and still nothing. I gave up and opened ALL of the windows and two of the doors in the house hoping to get some cross-ventilation. The next couple days were mild temperatures and then two nights ago it was getting quite cold when I went to bed so I made sure I had the heat switched to On. The next morning I could tell it did NOT come on. So it was completely dead. Luckily, we have a lovely gas fireplace that was able to heat the upstairs quite well within a few hours.

I did what any girl is supposed to do when something like that isn't working right. I called my Dad.
"Dad. I have a problem..." I told him. About an hour later he was at my house trying to figure out what was wrong. After looking over many things he figured out that one of the fuses was blown. He went to a couple places and picked up some fuses. He put one in and turned the heat on. It worked! Yay. ...Then we tried the a/c. It didn't work. Boo! That made everything else not work again too. Sure enough it blew the fuse again. Luckily he bought two of the cheap fuses and put it in. So we left it at that. At least we had heat.

Later in the day I called a heating/air conditioning place to figure out what was going on. They said that would have someone out tomorrow. So far I like this place since they're the ones that installed the furnace and stuff in the first place and they're the ones that just installed the fireplace and heat runs downstairs. The lady told me on the phone that someone would be out around 11 a.m. or later. I got a call at 8:30 a.m. (I was still in bed. Awake, but in bed.) and said the guy was just leaving a job in Morgan and would be here in about 40 minutes. I answered the door with wet hair and minimal makeup. I'm not sure I like them anymore after that.

I showed him downstairs and then got Garrett some breakfast, did two more steps on makeup, gel in my hair, and then went downstairs to see what he was doing. In the end it turned out that there was a wire leading from the furnace that runs to the outside unit and it was being pinched at the top near the original duct work. I wondered how it would get pinched all of a sudden when it hasn't been touched for the last 7 1/2 years. He said it's been that way all along but over time the plastic on it has been giving way to the pressure. So he checked the whole wire all the way out and it looked good. He also showed me that we had the filter in wrong and when he went to show me the right way, he realized why we couldn't get it in the right way; the clip in the back was bent too tight so he fixed that. At this point I went upstairs thinking he was just going to slip the filter back in and be done. But he came up a few minute later without his toolbox and grabbed a caulking gun and went back down. Several minutes later he was finally done and told me that he had sealed some gaps around the base of the furnace including the front where water pools when the washer drains.

He proceeded to go out to his van to create the bill. Boy was I shocked when I saw the total!! I hadn't really thought about it too much while he was out there but figured since there were no parts to replace it would easily be less than a hundred dollars. Nope. It was $149.00. It was $79 for the diagnostic fee and $70 for performing the services. He was here for 50 minutes. It makes me think I owe my Dad since he dedicated about 3 hours to it. I can't wait to find out how much the lawn mower is going to cost!


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