Wednesday - morning
Since the last post a few things have developed, the most annoying of which was the central AC in our house went out. It literally went out just before everyone closing (AC repair) on Friday afternoon, guaranteeing us a headache for the entire weekend. I called a local guy over who apparently didn't know what he was doing even tho highly acclaimed locally for he misdiagnosed the problem.
I'll circle back to that in a second, but the situation developed that he said the mother board was fried and probably the fan motor. I mean, it's whatever, it needs fixed especially in this heat but that sounded like a lot for a newer system that's only been in there what, 2 ..2-1/2 years? I'm not an AC person so I took his word for it. He said it would take 2-3 days to get the parts in.
Well, the lady of the house went and bought a portable ac unit for her room, my room already has a new one in it that worked beautifully I might add. It kept it as cool as I wanted it to be in here. My room has always been warmer (or colder in the winter) than the rest of the house and I had to make up for it long ago using a window ac.
But it's been so hot that the rest of the house was miserably hot. So, I went out and bought a "new" window unit to help bring down the temp in the dining/kitchen area. It is an 8,000 btu unit, not big enough to sufficiently cool it to whatever temp you wanted it to come down to but I figured it would help out. It did, immensely. It was $200, it was still in original box and packaging, you could tell it had never been opened, the owner brought it to our house amazingly enough. She said they had had it sitting in storage for a couple of years. I just had to hope it was going to work and it did and does, thankfully.
It was fairly nice in there after overnight of it continuously running the compressor. It actually brought the temp down in the dining room, kitchen and the rather large laundry and pantry room. That room is about 8 feet wide by 30 feet long.
So come Monday, the father - who is on the road and they are firmly on their way to a divorce - called Lowe's I guess it was to have someone out. I had contacted the company that came out and they hadn't ordered anything yet! Lowe's is who contracted out to have the system installed. This dude shows up - he looks to be all of 20 years old - but he knew what he was doing and figured out the problem quickly. I had mentioned that the motherboard and the inside of that area had been completely covered with a lot of condensation and thought that didn't look right for the area they had the motherboard in (control board).
He went and turned the thing on! The entire unit fired up and started pumping out cold air. He just looked at me. It had to be that water got on that board and temporarily jinxed it from carrying out it's duties and once it dried up it got back to work. He agreed with that assessment and then said "you need to replace the drain pipe, it's clogged up". He was absolutely correct. When I cut into that thing, it was completely filled with gunk, there was no water going through it at all. This is the pipe that carries the condensation from the evaporator to the outside.
Where was all that water going besides the mother board area? I thanked him - everyone else was at the lake, I had had to work that day and I didn't feel like driving clear over there after they had already been there a while, I wouldn't have been there too long and then time to go home. It was late afternoon. I went to Lowe's bought the stuff I thought I needed and then was going to put it all together when I realized I needed a few more parts. No. Not today, I thought. I rigged up the line to simply drop the water into a 5 gallon bucket and would fix it the next day.
I was amazed at how fast that bucket was filling up! Too fast to the point we decided to leave the ac off for the night and I would fix that line system when I got home from work. BUT, I would turn the ac back on in the morning and she would empty it as necessary. It filled up 3 times I think during the day. 15 gallons of water! That gives you an idea of the humidity in the air around here.
That was yesterday, I got home from work, one of the kids decided they were going with me, went to Lowe's got the materials, stopped to see a friend for lunch at Chili's - he works there, went home, got it all put together and walaah. No new motherboard, no new motor. The Lowe's rep was $89 service fee call and that was it. And I've already been repaid for it, I wasn't waiting, let's get this done. I contacted the other company and told them it was just a clogged up drainage system, nix the parts. They still hadn't ordered them. I mean, if I see anything asking for who to use for ac in this town again and someone mentions that company, I'm going to tell them NO.
Anyway, I worked the entire weekend and Monday and Tuesday. I was supposed to work today and through Saturday. But, my manager called yesterday while I was driving back from Arkansas and said they had cancelled tomorrow's (now today) load and he was rescheduling me. That was alarming because I have something very important to do on Sunday: baptize 2 people, namely one of the children and the lady of this house. The kid wanted to get baptized but then the mom wanted to too and they both decided I should be the one doing it.
The church has already done the interviews on both of them. They do a video taped production - they have experts that donate their time at this church - of them asking them questions. Lots of questions. Afterwards they edit it and come up with really a nice video, I've watched dozens of them now over the years of going there. They play that video before the actual baptism is done. I haven't seen it yet but I definitely want to. I only have to baptized them, the ministry does the rest. So, I ask each one if they have believed in Jesus Christ for everlasting life? They say yes and they get dunked, separately of course I can't baptize 2 people at once. Then the audience erupts into clapping, whistling and cheering - they really do and are really happy for the moment - then the pastor prays and that's it. It's pretty cool actually.
Well, back to the manager, he had put me down for tomorrow (Thursday) which runs into Friday and Monday/Tuesday run, but nothing on the weekend. He knows me. He said, well I could put you on a weekend run but I don't know if you have plans. Yup, I made plans alright, it is the baptism that I confirmed with the lady of the house who confirmed it with the associate pastor. I'm not bowing out of that one, to me that takes far greater precedence over working. I said yes, I am committed to doing a baptism. But he already knew and I am 99% sure he had already handed out weekend work to other drivers who want the work anyway. Once I came back into the lineup, their workload must have either decreased or they get dumped on the Ennis run.
I mean, if you're looking for a bigger paycheck, I would think they would want the Ennis run anyway? I'm not young anymore, I don't care about driving literally all day long like that, endlessly. I'll do that run once in a while if they get into a pinch, but I don't like it because they always put me on at least 2 of them in a row. I have to demand to get back into the Gurdon lineup. I literally have to tell them I'm not doing anymore Ennis runs, please find someone else to do it, thanks. I think that kind of irks them sometimes, which bothers me not. I have seniority over all of those drivers excepting one who has a weird schedule he does and doesn't conflict with anything I do at all.
Well, it turns out that on Saturday, there is also the Reuggenfest festival. It's supposed to be an Octoberfest thing so why they are doing it in September is beyond me. It's going to be hot as blazes out there, it's kind of bewildering. Yup, just checked again. There's a slight chance of rain on Saturday the high temp will be 97 which will put the heat index into well over the 100 range. Gag. I mean, we're going and it's usually fun but this decision over doing a traditionally October-held even in September is not registering with me, I'm going to ask the guy that produces it when I see him Saturday.
Anyway, the AC is fixed, the cancelled load worked out in my favor for the weekend and all is well in this world. Well, ok all is as well as it's going to get lol.
What else is going on? Well I just figured that the wiring for the expansion project is going to cost around 3 grand. It's very expensive per foot, it's expected and that's that. I want to get that sewer line installed and ready to go. It's so hot I've been putting it off but at the same time, I want to get it done, gag. Electric is one of the most expensive portions of this project but the septic system was 10k so there is that.
I'm going to put in much more heavy duty wiring than that contractor put in the park originally. Way too much load on that line, I'm wondering if it's not the source of the breakers burning out last month. I'm going to ensure no problems. Aluminum wiring, yes but that's acceptable and pretty much a requirement in underground stuff. Copper costs way too much money to even think about using it.
Temps will start to drop near the end of this month, that's when I'm shooting to get restarted on this thing. I will have help - hopefully anyway - that will motivate me to get this thing rolling. I have one open lot right now, a person was supposed to show up but their work plans cancelled on them so now I have an open lot. And I'm still dealing with these people who are non pays, I am going to give them a 3 day notice today. It's not a pay or leave notice, it's a leave now notice and if they aren't gone in 3 days, they will be trespassed and the Sheriff will be called to escort them off the property. If they refuse, well that's up to the Sheriff, but they can be arrested for criminal trespassing.
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