Our heat went out last night, so we woke up in a very, very cold house. I don’t care what you Yankees say, we had a hard freeze here, so it really was cold! There was snow on the car before we went to bed Tuesday night, and we had to get ice off the windshield to go see my pain specialist today. I felt like I’d never be warm again despite wearing the pretty gloves and scarf Sam bought for me a while back.1I have got to get a “real” winter coat, but it feels like such a waste to do so in Georgia. Until days like today!
There was no response from the landlord to email or many phone calls until late in the day. I huddled under the covers most of the day, both to try to get warm and because my pain is always worse in cold weather. The landlord eventually got someone out to check the system late this evening.
The maintenance guy claimed the filter was dirty. That’s pretty hard to believe since Sam changed it this morning, and the system hadn’t run since then. But okay, maybe marauding squirrels came along and soiled it, or the big black spiders that spooked the maintenance man did it. Whatever. I’d fuss a lot more if he’d tried to say that was the reason the system died, but he didn’t. He found some part that was bad, so he “bypassed the safeties” to get the heat back on.
“Bypassed the safeties” isn’t a happy thought to me. They exist for a reason, yes? Does that mean if the thing goes crazy it might explode instead of shutting down? He wasn’t a particularly articulate individual, and what he said made no logical sense, so I’m still in the dark about that.
He doesn’t know where to buy a new part. That isn’t comforting, either. See, he does maintenance for an apartment building that our landlord’s employer manages. He isn’t actually employed by an HVAC company, and I’m pretty sure that if we checked he isn’t licensed to, say, handle refrigerants or anything like that. Good thing it’s the heat instead of the air conditioning, huh?2My Daddy has worked in HVAC for most of my lifetime, so I’m more than slightly prejudiced about trained technicians, routine maintenance, and so on. He has no business crawling around under our or any other house at his age (and with his bad back and neck), so we don’t call him about problems unless we need him to refer us to someone else to fix them. Not to mention that the last time he did help us with this kind of problem, the owner of our previous home stiffed him on the bill for the parts (he hadn’t even charged labor!), so we don’t ever want to ask him to help out a landlord again (or help us because a landlord isn’t doing his or her job).
So the maintenance guy is going to talk to his boss at the apartment building Friday to see if he can get a part through them to fix our furnace so we’ll have more reliable heat. The landlord and her family are in Orlando doing Disney. Oh, happy day.3Of course, they don’t believe in having routine maintenance done on the system, so they always end up paying more for repairs when something goes wrong than they would have paid to have it checked and serviced regularly, and the equipment won’t last as long, either. Repairs usually seem to be needed when they’re traveling somewhere, too. It’s a Murphy thing.
The maintenance guy was nice enough to come here, at least, as a favor to our landlord. Considering that he’s lived here a very short time and had to be guided in by phone, and had to call Sam for help finding his way back home, and he’d already done a full day of work, that was very nice of him. The poor guy knows nothing about anywhere but a few blocks in midtown, apparently. Well, that’s what he knew this afternoon. His world has been expanded to include Decatur, now.
It’s much warmer in the house now, and it’ll be absolutely toasty in bed with my Sambear. Nitey nite!
Cold=worse pain. Hot seems to do the same to me.
I may need to pick your brain about podcasting…Let me know if there’s a good email to use:)
-Aladriana
hey- just wondering – don’t you trust lj anymore?
so my comment- I think losing your heat as a surprise is a particularly unpleasant experience having happened several times in Upstate NY I definately know what I’m talking about *lol*- it definately helps to have someone to cuddle up with 🙂
**warm hugs** Yeah, I’d worry about bypassing safety things on my heat, too.
We actually used our fireplace last night, which was quite delightful.
Here’s hoping the heat gets fixed properly, soon!
I feel your pain. I have just had one of the worst experiences with an air conditioning company from Bradenton Florida. Last month they installed a brand new central A/C unit. I discovered that the heat did not work on January 2nd. when the temperature dropped to 32 in Sarasota. I suffered through the 1st night and then called first thing in the morning. They refused to send a repair man, explaining that their repair man is just too busy with other customers. They agreed to send him out the next day which of course is too late. The temperature was only going to be 40 with a wind chill factor of 37 on the 3rd of January. I phoned them back and said I needed someone today. I got the run around and then finally they sent out the original installer. Unfortunately, He only installs the units and does not really know how to make repairs. He called the Service tech who then agreed to come out. He never showed up. I spent the long night in bed wearing a winter jacket with the hood over my head and several blankets. What really made the situation horrible was that I have had the flu for the past week. I was just getting over it before all of this happened. Now, I can’t speak and have a horrible earache with the chills. Now I will be missing a day of work. They called this morning and said the tech will be here 1st thing. It is 9:30am and he is still not here. I guess they are waiting for the temerature to reach 80 degrees before they fix the heat. My plan now is to have them remove the unit and get my money back. Just so you know the company is Oceanaire from Bradenton Florida. I would not recommend them to my worst enemy. Thanks for allowing me to vent. I am feeling quite defeated at the moment.
Aladriana, either my technomom at LJ address or cyn at technomom dot com will work 🙂
My body doesn’t seem to be able to regulate temperatures very well any more. Heat exhausts me, but doesn’t add to my pain as much as the cold.
It isn’t that I don’t trust LJ, Kaaren – I just can’t keep up with updating in both places, and if I try to follow comments in two places I always miss something. So I decided to cross-post the text and ask people to comment here. I hope it isn’t too annoying!
No heat in NY would be much worse. I’m such a wimp! I don’t know how you deal with all that ice and snow.
I’m envious, Hope! It’s been YEARS since we had a working fireplace! I bet y’all were nice and toasty 🙂
Cheryl, that’s terrible! I’d definitely be LOUD about complaining about that company. Write a letter to your paper, local consumer reporters, the Better Business Bureau, etc. Post about them on your local paper’s web site, any local web forums or LJ communities, etc. People should know not to deal with them!
I look forward to owning our own home so we can pick the repair people we deal with.