Breaking Down

That title could fit many subjects to post about (like my emotional status) but this one is specifically about objects/things that have broken down recently.

Back in April I posted about how our a/c wasn't working and that a wire was being pinched and shorting out. Well, that was no big deal compared to what we just had to have done. Since we had our duct work done downstairs (a year ago it seems to me) at first I was hating the fact that that all the heat was shooting downstairs into the uninsulated basement. For the last couple months it was killing me that the a/c was blowing 1/2 its cold air into the already cool basement and that meant it had to work extra hard to get the upstairs cool. I finally decided I'd had enough and I cut up vent sized cardboard pieces to duct tape over the vents to get more of the air blowing upstairs. After taping up my first vent I went to the opposite side of the house when I smelled a burning smell. I couldn't imagine what would be so hot down there and smell like it was about to catch on fire. After opening windows to let it air out, turning the lights and a/c off, we turned the a/c back on much later that evening as kids were going to bed. It was about 80'f at that point. About 5-10 minutes later we could smell that same smell but upstairs and very strongly. So no a/c that night which was a Saturday. We had to go all of Sunday with no a/c and it got to about 84'. Very uncomfortable for a pregnant lady but the standing fan helped. I spent a good amount of time on the internet trying to troubleshoot the problem to see if we could fix it ourselves. One thing I knew was that there was condensation that was at the bottom of the furnace and that it was dripping from a little higher above. I also knew that there was no condensation pump to have gone out and that it was a gravity draining system. So the question was still what was burning?

I called around first thing Monday morning and after 2 places said they couldn't get here at all or not til much later, the 3rd place could get here in about an hour. So the guy determined that the furnace motor was shot and that the pipe that was supposed to let the condensation drain out was clogged, therefore overflowing and then dripping onto all of the important wires, etc. He left to try to find a new motor nearby but called a while later to say he couldn't find one and he couldn't get back here until noon the next day. Drat!! I spent the rest of the day out and about to stay out of the heat of the house. When we got home around 7:30 it was 89'f in the house. No fan can cool you off at that temp. So the guy came and fixed it and over $700 later I had a/c. It literally took the whole rest of the day to cool the house down to a reasonable temp.. The funny thing was that I went to bed excited that I didn't need the fan in our bedroom anymore but I still woke up too hot and ended up turning it on anyway.

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Before we even got the a/c fixed Jon's commuter car (1994 civic) that he only usually drives from here to the commuter train about 10 minutes away overheated on him. The car already doesn't have a/c (which we've tried to fix a few times) and then for it to overheat now was frustrating. Luckily we still have our old van and he's been able to drive that. We still need to get it in and have it fixed. Depending on the cost we may just be dumping the car.

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There's another whole post I need to do about Jon and his running, weight loss, and races; namely the Ragnar Relay Race a.k.a. the Wasatch Back Relay and the 1/2 marathon he did. Well, with all of the regular training and then running two 1/2 marathons on the same weekend with only 1 day between he ended up with a stress fracture in his left shin. So he is now wearing a boot and is on crutches. He's supposed to do that for at least 4 weeks. He's already 1.5 weeks in but he's done too much without the crutches and I don't think he's healed as much as he could have at this point if he was being good. This also means that he can't be moving all the heavy loads from downstairs that he would be doing otherwise. So yet another setback on the progress of the basement.


I think that's all for the demise of things around here...well except for the goldfish Savannah brought home from school last week. I think it lasted 3 days. We now have a parakeet. Maybe another post I'll explain how that happened.