Quequechan Quilter - 7 July 2024

 

A/C Drain Line

Hello everyone.

My apologies for it being so long since my last post.  It's been a very stressful three weeks.

As you can see from the photo above, we've been having some issues with your HVAC system.  Four-and-half weeks ago we were told that the reason our air conditioning failed was that it was aging and likely not to last much longer.  We had already been advised when we purchased our townhouse ten years ago that the HVAC system was not in the greatest of shape, so we decided it was finally time to replace it. The company we hired for the work has a great reputation, but we've had several issues since the work began.

The day of the install, one of the crew members cut his hand and managed to get blood all through the townhouse.  The crew had a problem with the pressure in the new a/c compressor, but couldn't diagnose it.  When they left after ten hours work, they said if the unit shutdown to call into the office.  It took me four hours to clean the mess they left behind.  I did expect to have some clean-up, but the HVAC system is in our attic space and the access is through a hatch in the front bedroom on the second floor.  There was debris all across the room and tracked through the the unit, the youngman who cut his hand managed to get blood on the floors, the walls, the bed, the curtains, in short, everywhere.  

After seven days, the new a/c system stopped working.  The senior technician who responded to our call told us that the damper, which was not replaced, wasn't opening properly and was causing a back pressure in the system which was why it shut down.  He tried to open it, but couldn't manage on his own.  He advised us to leave the system on and call in to the office again if it didn't function properly.  Well, a few hours after he left the system tried to turn on but kept short cycling.  We had to shut it down again.  The senior technician returned mid-week with a helper and managed to partially open the damper.  He said to only use it as a one zone system for now from the second floor thermstat, but that the damper, at the very least, needs to be replaced, but stated that the new energy efficient system would never function properly if we didn't replace all the old ductwork as the way the original install was done causes us to loose roughly half of our heat and air conditioning.  Not what we wanted to hear. 

Any way, for now the system was fuctioning, however, about twenty four hours later, water started falling from the sprinkler head and the exhaust vent in the second floor master bath.  I went up to the attic space for the first time since the installation, and found what you see in the photo.  The drain line for the a/c wasn't glued together and had come loose.  

After a rather emotional call to the company's messaging service (as it was now a long holiday weekend) they said they would try to get a technician here, but were already booked to capacity due to the holiday.  I initially put a container under the disconnected pipe, but the system was spilling out so much water I either had to shut the system down again or find a way to temporarily connect the pipe to the elbow.  I remembered that I had some duct tape in the basement, so I went down to get it, wrapped the joint with it and it held.

They did find someone to come out on Saturday, the youngman who had been here with the senior technician on Wednesday. He glued the disconnected pipe and checked the rest of the connections and found that none of them had been glued.  He took the time to glue them all before he left and was very concerned that the line had been left like that.  Quite frankly, so was I.  

Now we have to decide if we can afford to replace all the ductwork to get the energy efficiency we expected to get from the new system or just replace the damper to keep the system running.  

Obviously, it has been a very stressful three weeks.  I have had no inclination to get down to my basement sewing room to do much of anything.  On top of the HVAC debacle, our condo association just paid in replace all the decks.  The contractor working on them. hasn't been diligent in completing things as they moved along.  My deck is still missing trim pieces from the railing.  

On top of which, we're having a problem getting our new deck furniture.  The old set was in pretty bad shape so we decided to replace it.  The first choice of furniture, after waiting four weeks for it, turned out to be on back-order when I finally called the store to find out why it still hadn't shipped.  They refunded that purchase and we chose something else which shipped within a day.  Unfortunately, the chairs arrived, but the table was damaged by the shipper and is listed as undeliverable.  Now we're waiting to find out if the vendor will replace the damaged table.

I'm incredibly tired just from dealing with all these problems.  The HVAC company is sending someone here tomorrow to go over the costs of our options to keep the new system running.  I'll have to call the vendor or the store or both to find out what is going on in regard to replacing the damaged table.

I hope you've all had a much better three weeks than we have and enjoyed celebrating Fourth of  July.  Maybe my next post will be more about quilting projects than household repairs.

Virginia