AC Install - 10/17/2005

Windows are nice, but what completes the experience? That's right, air conditioning. Cars can go without, houses going without is painful. But who cares when you drive a $65,000 Escalade, right? Wrong. I care. So we installed air conditioning. We would have had to repair the heater anyway as it was rusty and leaking at the flue, but why throw money at an old piece of junk?.


Yup, the 30 year old Garrison heater goes away.


Vintage RC cola can in the air intake space. I'm leaving this for the next owner.


New unit is installed! Almost the same size as the old one.


Bye bye spa! You lose your circuit breaker and we add one for the AC itself! We freed up a slot this way. Our house only has JUST enough line for 100A service. Upgrading to 150-200A service would cost a minimum of $10k to trench the line from the street and install a new box. Yay for modern 1970's California development, put all the lines underground so the fuddy duddies don't have to look at power poles and complain about birds crapping underneath, and let's NOT MAKE IT UPGRADABLE. Not like anyone in 30 years will ever want more power, right? Only morons chasing the dollar think like that.


The compressor. It's the quiet version. It would have been nice to be closer to the unit, but this is the only spot on the sides of the house where we have room to install it. WIDE house, TINY lot: yet another new amazing sensation that is sweeping the nation brought to you by your friends in California who think know they are better than you! Resistance is futile and you WILL agree and conform to our standards (as you are a blind idiot neocon if you don't). Rat infested woodpile that was here before is now gone so it takes it's spot.


Lots of cooling lines are needed.


Hole in the wall for the cooling lines to run.


New thermostat is installed and lines to the condensor are installed.


The old hole in the other wall had 5 different paint colors (pink, brown, blue, green and white) underneath it. I patched it up and painted it to match the rest of the walls before Lisa got home.

Well, the install went smoothly. Couldn't have asked for a better day labor-wise to install, it was 50 outside and raining. Of all the things to do. It was 100°F over the weekend and Monday a massive cold front moves in. Made the coolant a bit of an issue since it moves easily when it's warm and the cold state didn't help it. And of course as soon as it was installed we get to turn it off since it's too cold for it. Such ironies are part of this little game we call life. But it at least works so much better than the last one! Controlled coldness is love.

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Last updated October 17th, 2005