Thank goodness for handy men. And by that, I mean "handymen" as well as men who are handy with tools and mechanical things. My parents have had an issue with their air conditioner that has been multiple days in resolving. I spent some time over at their house the other day, working with a very nice gentleman named Patrick, who not old fixed the problem, he made suggestions that would help in other ways with moisture in their basement.
The problem started when the air conditioner stopped working. Whenever this happens the immediate and prevailing concern is the unit or something expensive in the unit has gone bad and will be costly in both time and money to replace. In this case, the unit itself was new and still under warranty. My husband and I both turned our inexperienced eyes to the situation, flipped some breakers, fiddled with things, and came up with nothing—so we called the company that installed the unit.
Patrick looked at the situation over and diagnosed the condensate pump as the culprit. At this, I was annoyed—at myself. My husband and I are veterans of condensate pump issues and I was surprised we hadn't caught it. Patrick then showed me the specifics of the particular pump and I realized it was of a type I'd never seen before and didn't realize how the separated parts of the version worked together. At least that was the rationalization for the failure of observation on my part.
Good news, the part was easily and quickly replaced. Bad news, it was legacy to the system and not replaced with the newer installation of the full unit so it wasn't under warranty. But no matter, it was fixable and quickly fixable at that. Also, it wasn't one of the more expensive parts.
Patrick made the change and then called me to the basement because he'd made some observations. The condensate pump had failed in part because it was filled with mud. Mud isn't something normally found in a condensate pump but since this one was sitting on the floor of their crawl space and since there had been a flood some time back as a result of poorly managed silt fence installation from the property up the hill from my parents during construction (another long and sordid tale,) it was likely the pump had been inundated at that time and had limped along since then, pumping as best it could until it failed.
What Patrick was suggesting was to attach the condensate pump to the side of the air conditioning unit. That would prevent problems in case there was ever water in the basement again. But he hadn't done so because my father had a home dehumidifier running in the basement main area with a drainage hose heading out via the same channels. Water has to flow downward and unless the dehumidifier was elevated, mounting the condensate pump up higher would back up and stop the lovely, cool air from coming out of the unit until things had been manually corrected.
Patrick could have left at that point, but he had more suggestions. We moved the dehumidifier up higher and put a large rubber mat under it so it wouldn't roll on its wheels. The output hose he had already tried to put down the drain for the washing machine but there wasn't ample room in the pipe. Elevating the machine would do for now, but his next suggestion was even better. Why not let the condensate pump also pump out the water from the dehumidifier? This is common practice with an installed humidifier but it would work just as well for a portable one. The current hose was too short, but if we got a longer hose we could connect it to one of the input ports of the condensate pump and then the water from the air conditioner as well as the dehumidifier would be pumped out together.
I gave Patrick my sincere thanks (as evidenced by a nice tip, something I believe strongly in for good service) and then told my husband there was more work to be done to finish the job. Today, my very handy husband is working at my parent's house right now, putting that hose in place.
I am grateful for all the handy men as well as the handy women in the world, who keep our homes and businesses working properly.
The Big Boy Tiny Girl Blanket Drop Incident: My children were playing in my daughter's closet this morning. All was sunshine and light until I heard my daughter screaming and crying, running down from upstairs saying, "I need to go to the chiropractor, my brother just dropped a blanket on my head!" It sounded laughable, I know, but then I heard the details. My daughter had her brother's weighted blanket up on a high shelf in her closet. While they were playing, either by intention or by accident (it depends on who's telling the story) the blanket came down on her head and wrenched her neck to the side. This isn't a light blanket. It's filled with small glass beads and is a lovely feeling to have on you if you like weight. We got it for my son in the hopes that it would help if he was having sensory issues. I'm not sure if he ever did or does, but he loves the blanket regardless. The drop from high up onto my daughter's head hurt and her neck was immediately bothering her. I thrust them both into the car and sure enough, her neck was subluxated. I had my son checked as well because we're going on a car trip for many house in a few days and his back invariably hurts him. I'm glad I got her in quickly so her neck didn't have time to become too inflamed. She's much better now and they both have been warned about using the weighted blanket as a "weapon" in the future.
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