Cool it now

Hey, it's not like the Attractive Nuisance owns the patent on using song titles as blog titles.

I woke up at 6:45 (which is like 4:45 in Hawaii) this morning. Our air conditioning service provider was scheduled to arrive between 7 and 9, and I have to be a damn optimist.

So when he arrived, at 9, I was awake enough to fully digest what's going on with the larger of the two A/C units. We called the provider because the air flow had diminished in the past week, keeping the temperature between 80 to 82 degrees in that side of the house (the other side was a more comfortable 75). That's not exactly uninhabitable, especially with tabletop and ceiling fans. But with Las Vegas topping 115 degrees every day, I wasn't going to tempt fate if the unit was slowly telling me it was about to die.

I learned that the A/C unit is working as well as it can, which is both good and bad. The heat load on that side of the house has increased notably by the heat wave, but also by the converted garage (done by the previous homeowner) which siphons the air flow so that it's about 7 degrees cooler. Incidentally, we have guests this week and I'm sleeping in that room.

The provider recommended we lower our expectations for the unit by setting the desired temperature around 80 or 81, so that the system could operate in cycles rather than continuously.

It's 14 years old, which kind of makes it the Chevrolet Chevette of A/C units. (My folks had a Chevette that far outlived that model's average lifespan.) So the end is nigh. I certainly hope that, if it cannot cheat death forever, it dies in the winter. I have unbelievable tolerance for the cold. The heat, not so much.