I tried to come home a little early yesterday to meet my sister’s friend, Barb, who was going to pick up the rabbits, cages, and their supplies (she didn’t make it). I wanted to check in with my mother and see how my father’s surgery had gone, and I also had a number of emails to reply to, ranging from how to return Pugsley to Circle Tail, if they’ll take Gomez, and what to do about Morticia. Plus, Electra (“Kitten”) is sick and hasn’t eaten (three meals skipped at the time of this writing), and I had a lot of stuff to work through with the relocation consultant at 4:30.

As soon as I got home, I took Gomez’s crate outside (he’d had a piddle accident–Becky was an hour late taking him outside) to hose off and make phone calls. Afterward, I talked to my wife in the backyard while we were watching the dogs, and remembered that I needed to go close the garage door. Walking past the air conditioner, I heard an ominious buzzing and noticed the fan wasn’t turning. Going into the house from the garage, I heard that the blower was blowing lukewarm air around the house. Uh oh.

I called Jansen Heating and Air, the company that had serviced my furnace in January. Luckily, they had an 8am to 10am slot open for Tuesday, and I was able to schedule an early service call.

To try to get the air conditioner working in the meantime, I took the hose and tried to cool off the enclosure, and started the fan with a jet of water. It spun up, but after 15 minutes, cool air wasn’t coming out of the registers in the house. This was looking worse and worse. We shut off the air conditioner and kept the house buttoned up: it was 88 degrees outside, but only 82 inside. By evening, it was 81 outside and 84 inside. Damn that modern insulation!

We opened the windows overnight (very rare, since we live in a ranch) and left Pugsley the 70+ pound Boxer guard dog loose to wander the house, so he slept at the foot of the bed on the floor–go figure. By morning, the house was down to a muggy 81 degrees, while the outside was about 71.

Around 8:30, Jansen’s service rep, Nick, showed up (he had a photo id and everything) and listened to my tale of woe. I turned on the A/C for him, it began to buzz, and he pulled a big plastic plug from a power box beside it on the house. Off came the metal housing on the back side of the heat pump, revealing something a lot less complex than I imagined. A small AC/DC transformer, some wiring to motors and compressors, and what’s called a starter capacitor with a prominent bulge. “There’s your problem,” Nick announced triumphantly. “Your stater capacity blew.”

I’d seen capacitors burst of computer motherboards before, spilling their vital oily essence onto their plastic sheathed bodies and nearby components, so I was a bit surprised to see this one intact, if bulging like a can of soda kept in the freezer overnight. A quick swap with an identically rated although differently shaped capacitor and a quick check of the heat pump wiring and cooling tube and Nick was ready to present me with a $188.00 bill.

It would figure that as soon as I need to sell the house, something, anything, would fail. I’m going to be living on a very tight budget for the next 45 days, and a dead HVAC system was the last thing I needed. (Kinda like a sick cat.) Thankfully, the fix was relatively inexpensive. At least I can truthfully claim to buyers that both the furnace and the A/C were inspected this year.

This brings up the number two reason to move to Seattle: weather. If you’re from the Cincinnati area, just try to sleep with the windows shut and the air conditioning off. Our modern houses don’t have enough windows to keep cool night breezes moving through the house. The only thing that saved our sleep last night was the ceiling fan. In Seattle, although the nights could be humid and possibly muggy, I can’t imagine that it would feel like a miasmic swamp, with air so thick you can cut it with a knife and serve it like jelly on a piece of toast.