Once again, it is fall, and once again, I will want to beat the snot out of the heating guy when he comes to do the fall inspection.
It's nothing personal. It probably won't even be the same guy who came last year. And that is the problem. Sort of.
You see, since we have moved in, our first floor has temperatures resembling Siberia, while our basement is more like visiting the Equator. In July. At noon. Wearing a parka. Holding one of those reflective thingeys. And every time I get someone from the heating company to come out, whether for fall or spring service, I get a different theory as to why that is, but no actual solution. Sort of.
Meanwhile, if I remember my high school science correctly, it's only a matter of time before it starts to rain or snow in the stairwell. Yipee.
We suspected something was wrong right after we moved in and, while Tim was on the first floor, huddling over my scented candles and looking longingly at the Yule log on TV, I had to put on my bathing suit and six coats of clinical strength deodorant just to run down to the basement for three minutes.
So I called the heating company that had installed the heater and arranged for them to come out and fix it. (I believe it was a fairly polite request, but at the time, I may have been a bit delirious from the heat stroke I had suffered when I attempted to work out in our basement gym for the first time, so I may have gone all Dirty Harry on them.) Either way, they showed up, pronto.
"The problem is the ducts," the guy told me. "There's flaps inside that direct the heat up or down."
"Great, then you can fix them, and we're good to go."
"Nope. Not that easy," he grunted.
Yeah. As opposed to all the other things in my life that are. By the way, can you tell the paramedics when they arrive that I'd like the rehydrating IV placed in my left arm, so that I can smack you with my right?
"Because...?" I prompted.
"I don't know which duct leads up and which leads down."
"Well, can you figure it out, since you guys were the ones to install the ducts?" Perhaps we should just send in the A-Team instead or a really, really bit hamster with a webcam.
"I can guess, and if I'm wrong, you can just move the flaps the opposite way if it doesn't work."
Wow. Glad I called in the professionals. I'll bet the DIY network has come knocking at your door more than once.
Spotting a booklet and some papers stuck to the side of the heater, I suggested the correct answer might be found there. Bingo! the schematic for the whole heating system was there. In no time at all, my visit to the tropics would be but a fond memory, and that mirage of an oasis I could see in the corner would turn back into some paint cans and an old plant stand. Triumphantly, I shoved it under his nose.
"Still doesn't help," he shook his head. "Can't tell because I don't know where we are exactly according to this."
Really? They didn't put a big red X or yellow dot saying 'you are here' on it? Clearly, the installer was not as knowledgeable or as dedicated to his craft as you.
"Well, it says 'storage' here," I jabbed at the map, "and we are standing in the storage room," I gestured to the shelved loaded with assorted Christmas and Halloween decorations, "so I'm guessing we would be here."
A bead of sweat the size of a watermelon trickled off my chin to emphasize where I was pointing.
"I guess I'll try, but like I said, you may have to redo it yourself," he stuck to his original prognosis despite the fact that smoke had started to come out of my ears. "Do you have post-its so I can label which way I think the flaps go?"
At this point, I gladly escaped both him and the heat to get the post-its, since it prevented me from either passing out (and I was afraid that I would have to rely on Magellan there to get us out of the sweatbox we called a basement) or choking him with my bare hands.
Surprisingly, his highly knowledgeable solution did not work, and neither did attempting to flip the flaps. Shocker.
Once again, I called the heating company and this time a different guy showed up who took one look at what his co-worker had done and shook his head.
"Never touch the flaps," he lectured me, pulling post-its off, right and left. "That was totally the wrong thing to do."
Hope blossomed somewhere deep inside me.
"What you need to do is close all the vents down in the basement and direct the heat up," he pronounced.
Way ahead of you guy. "I did, except for the one in the bedroom down here and it's better, but the upstairs is still much colder."
"Hmmm. " He pondered for a moment.
"Do you change the filters every month?"
Yes.
"Clean out the ducts regularly?"
You mean the new ducts in our new house? Really?!
"Is the thermostat near a door or window?"
Nope.
"Then I guess that's just the way your system works," he shrugged.
Fabulous in-depth analysis. And here I thought the first guy was useless. I briefly contemplated chaining him in the basement a la Kathy Bates in Misery, until he came up with a more acceptable solution, but upon second thought realized that there was the distinct possibility that that would never happen, so decided instead to move on to guy #3.
I was beginning to feel like I was on the old Dating Game show, but instead of the three men of my dreams, it was more like choosing between Larry, Moe or Curly with the grand prize being an all expense paid trip to the middle of the Saraha desert.
Guy 3 unplugged some device on the side of the heater after replacing that filter and recommended covers for the air-conditioning units outside before going on his merry way back to his lovely climate controlled car.
I guess to him, it wasn't really a big deal that the National Zoo was contacting us to open a Brazillian rainforest exhibit in our basement, but I was really tired of starting my workouts by sweating so much I looked like I I had just swum the English Channel.
And so it went, through guy 4 and 5. They each shook their heads, tinkered around with something on the heater, criticized whatever the last guy did and made pretty much useless suggestions before leaving us to wallow in our misery.
Finally, though, the last guy (I'm guessing, based on previous experience that it was pure dumb luck) seemed to solve the worst of the problems (or maybe it was a cumulative effect). And so we are set until guy7 (or is it 8?) comes and tells me how he didn't know what he was talking about and sends us back to that tropic isle...with Gilligan as our repair guy again.
No comments:
Post a Comment