Aggregate Saturday:
Hot? OMG, hot doesn’t even begin to describe it.
–
Spent a very hot few hours trying to install a window air conditioning unit into the long-suffering wife’s parents living room. They are resistant to change to put it mildly. The new flat screen TV sits on top of the old console model. The window is behind this arrangement. The worry was it would “bother the TV” so we had to wait until the temps are in the 90’s to play this game.
It actually was pretty straightforward. The first time. I unplugged the TV amid a chorus of disapproval and set it carefully on the couch. Heaved the unit into the window, got it fired up and the LSW packs the edges with towels to keep the critters with wings out. It’s done.
Sort of.
This unit, an experimental model from Edison’s original lab, blew what felt like 1 BTU. It was conditioning the air but only in the vaguest sense of that word. As we drove away I told the LSW this was not good enough. We went shopping for a new unit. Heh.The LSW had seen a news item on the TV. NO AC’s for love or money. Off we went anyway.
Lowes had lots of 16,000 BTU behemoth units. Monsters that would tip over the in-laws house and certainly would not fit in any window. K-Mart had fans. Lots of fans. K-Mart was where the LSW and I became angry at each other. We lost track of each other for 1/2 hour. It wasn’t pretty.
We sailed home and took an old unit from the attic. It’s a pretty good one. Probably 8,000 BTU. We took it out of service two years ago because new ones that have all sorts of features, like they weigh less than the Queen Mary, were on sale.
This unit is beyond heavy. It fires up on the kitchen floor and I hear the compressor kick on. It works. After cleaning all the seeds out that the squirrels hid in it we truck it down to the in-laws.
This installation, not so smooth. Father in law wants to help and I want him not to. I am terrified he will get hurt. A trip to the E.R. is not in my plans for the night. It gets a bit tense.
My fears are: This unit will be too big for the windows of their house, built before windows were invented. Lucky for me it fits.
Now, will it blow a fuse? And yes, the in-laws house uses fuses. Not breakers. Not even the “new style” fuses, the cylinders. These are the ones that you could sub a quarter for in a pinch.
I let it run on high for 15 minutes. It worked, the fuses stayed intact. Mission accomplished.
Today the temp on my car mirror said 105. I went to check on the in-laws, un-announced.
They were in the darkened living room, no ac, no fan, door open.
I surrender.
The Rant D’Jour is about the heat, not the humidity.
It’s not the heat. It’s the idiots who talk about it.
-30-
