Today as I was napping during the hottest part of the day my front air conditioner gave it up to the ghost. It is about 6 years old so I guess it surpassed it's life span., a Frigidaire 12000btu unit that actually worked better than the LG 15000 it replaced. The LG only lasted about 3 summers, if it is digital and Styrofoam it isn't worth the paper used to pack it. I noticed the cats were jumping up on my washing machine in the hallway and they have never done that but I got up from my nap two times to get them off the washing machine. I finally gave up after two attempts to go back to sleep and I walked into the front kitchen area and knew before I reached the kitchen the air had stopped working. It is just killer heat and humidity here and I suspect the unit has a compressor failing because it did come back on a couple times and then off after a minute or two. Possibly a thermal switch or something that you couldn't find if your life depended on it. When cheap air conditioners quit don't waste you time trying to save a dollar, get another soon as possible. Tonight the cats are here in my room on a chair and the 3rd cat is laying down on my little wheeled hutch I have a monitor sitting on plus their bagged food. Tomorrow I will close the door and keep them in here where it will be tolerable until late in the day. I can also bring my box fan in and help circulate the air. It will be much better than them trying to tolerate a hot hallway. I only rent so I will get another air soon as the owners contact me. This will be the 5th replacement in 14 years. In the days past it was common to have a unit last 20 years. It is times like these I wish I were still in Nevada using a water cooler, they are so easy to repair and cool twice as good as air conditioning, and you can even leave your doors open and it still cools even with temperatures 115-120 outside. It would never work here since humidity kills the cooling effect of the water coolers. Last night at 12:30 it was still 89 degrees outside.
i can't imagine how anxious you must be...waiting for someone to get what you need to be cool...it's dangerous temps here and i do hope your air conditioning is very quickly received
The past 3 hours I have gone in and checked it and the last check I pulled the plug to check if it was making poor contact, I saw some black dust on one prong and cleaned it and re inserted the plug and it came back on and has been on for about 20 to 30 minutes. If I were very lucky it will be the plug was just dirty and not supplying enough amps for the compressor to run. The electronics and fan have never stopped working but they are very low voltage, it's the compressor that needs a good connection. I will check it again in a few minutes and see if it is cooling the area but it will take a couple hours due to the small size of the unit. Sun is staying out until after 8pm and that don't help. Property owner wasn't able to speak when I called but I did get a message. They are great and will get back with me. I always get a unit when I need one. My little unit in the bedroom died 3 years ago and I just drove to walmart and picked one up, they just deducted the cost from my rent. I looked at new units online and the cost like everything has gone thru the roof. If I have too I will go run the tub full of cool water and nap there. This small bedroom unit works very well after the sun goes down and it is hard to get it to adjust down so it isn't so cold later in the evening. My next shopping trip I plan on buying another box fan just in case, I leave one running 24/7 on top of the washing machine to keep the cats comfy during the day and night. They can come into my room but they like to stay up and make noise so I run them out if they get too noisy.
So many laughed at the idea of global warming, in the past. The fatuous wind bag, Flush Bimbaugh, regularly poked fun, on his radio show, at those who dared to warn us of what was just around the corner. Well, we've now turned that corner, and the street ahead is hotter than Hell! Make no mistake, here, I do not place the blame for global warming squarely on our shoulders. I don't know what part, if any, our species actually had to do with it. Maybe we're simply going through a natural climate change cycle. Thing is, I don't care! It's here, and now we need to deal with it! My fantasy is that I leave Austin, Texas, with its swelling population, terrible, polluted, hot air, horrible traffic, increasing crime rate, polluted water, etc., move to Colorado, and everything will be great, again! No, it won't be: Regular forest fire season is ruining the clean air, up there, during that time of year. I'll have to deal with that. Also, many of the cities in Colorado now get temps in the 90's, with some regularity. I imagine that temps in the 100's will show up, fairly soon, in the lower elevations. Colorado will also be facing serious water issues in the near future as its sources dry up. So, what to do, what to do? I take some comfort in the Law of the Survival of the Fittest, assuming I actually think it's a great thing for our species to survive. Those who, by the throw of the genetic dice, are predisposed to live and thrive in tropical or desert conditions and temperatures, will pass their genes on to their offspring who will thrive in conditions that will greatly weaken and/or kill those who cannot adapt to the same. I have regularly, and recently, worked in 100°+ weather, doing strenuous outside work, but I'm getting to be an old guy, and I'm not sure how many more of those days I still have left in me. At 70, should I even be doing what I'm doing? I never suspected that I'd be living in times like these. Sure, nobody can say things are boring, but I wouldn't mind being bored, occasionally, rather than be in the quandary I now find myself in, concerning my own future.
i will be waiting to hear back from you ...if the air is getting cold...hope that black was just dust..not an arc...
It was not cold air at bed time but it was cool, I got up this morning at 5 to make coffee and feed the cats and it was cold air and must have been on all night. So far it remains on and cold, I was afraid to mention it or touch anything thinking it would go off again. I'm beginning to believe the reset in the digital end of the control must have got messed up with a possible brown out while I was napping. Nothing was on in this room at that time except the TV but if I was asleep I wouldn't have known we had a brown out which we get real often. I can't remember if I had turned off the TV or not but the sound would have been down. That's where I am hanging my hat on a brown out and reset malfunction of the digital controls. Only other possible problem might have been a stuck pump vane in the compressor that finally loosened and started acting right. The really weird part was when it would actually start up and be cold for one or two minutes but no longer. The temperature sensor on the front of the evaporator could be bad or just dirty, I did clean the transistor because I had cleaned the fins twice since owning it and we have lots of dust here. If it is till blowing cold when that 95 comes round later today, and it will !, I will feel pretty good about it. It does not have a gas leak or it would not be cooling at all, the compressor is not noisy and it sounds as good as it did 5 years ago when it was brand new. So now it is just a waiting game and if it quits again it will be on the weekend so I can do without for two extra days.
I grew up in the UP of Michigan, and we had temperatures above 100 in the summer. There is nothing new under the sun.
What a relief...we have central air here...and i had my husband to go get us two window units...if the central goes....no repair for however long...113 here for days...that's the real feel... we've been putting ice jugs in birdbaths....keeping them water...stay safe with those little cats... there's ferals here in town we've been feeding them for months...we take early to a big oak...ice water now..since no rain for these ditches round town.. So glad y'all are okay
Thomas, have you felt the a/c plug and the wall outlet to see if they are warm? You might ask your landlord to check the outlet unless you know how to do so. Those window units used to freeze up in times when they couldn't keep up with the heat (run continuously), so turning down the thermostat a couple of degrees might help. I hope you can keep cool in this heat; it's awful.
We moved to Maine in the spring of 2001. That summer, we bought a couple of window air conditioners, which is odd, given that I didn't have air conditioning when I lived in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, but it was my wife's idea. The following year, rather than putting them back in the windows, we gave them away. We usually only have a few really hot days a year, and they can be tolerated with open windows and fans.
We also have central air and a backup window unit that we store in the garage. We've had to use that window unit a couple of times in the past 10 years just to keep a single room cold when the central air was on the fritz. I'm more nervous about the power grid and whether it will be able to keep up this summer. With all the pushing for electric vehicles that add to the need for power, things are going to go from bad to worse.
Be careful with the A/C at night. My wife's uncle, who lived in Mesa, AZ was found wandering the streets of his subdivision one night and subsequently died. He had few health problems but was over 80 when he died. Wife was executor of the estate, so flew to AZ to take care of the belongings and such. When she arrived, it was over 140 in his home and the A/C was non-functional. The A/C repair guy she called to look at it gave her and estimate of $2400 so she decided to tough it out with showers in her swimsuit. Eventually a neighbor man looked into the unit and found a wire that had been held in place with a cable tie had fallen when the cable tie broke (probably form age and exposure and the wire that had been held fell into the fan. The fan chopped the wire. They neighbor fixed it for $2.40 or something and all returned to normal. We figured the old guy (uncle) overheated at night and awoke confused, and that led to his death. Weather here pretty normal as Alaska goes--highs in the 70s and lows in the high 40s to low 50s. When I checked the ice cover, ice is still on the coast. Somewhat unusual for this time of year, as the ice moves away from the coast and the barges supplying the coastal villages can get in to offload. It seem the ice cover is unusually high this year, but you won't find that reported anywhere, as it doesn't fit with the narrative and agenda.