{image via flickr)

For those of you that follow me on twitter, or know me personally, know that I have had trouble with my A/C since coming home from my memorial day weekend in hot hot hot New Orleans. Well let me explain it to those who are interested.

The A/C was turned on that weekend and worked fine. Monday (Memorial Day) it stopped working and we called a dispatcher to send us a tech from their list of providers. He was scheduled to come the next day. Clearly, I was upset and just made a rash move. Get me somebody, ANYBODY! ITS HOT.

Tuesday comes and the tech’s name is Ryan. Nice guy. Tells me I need to clean my 2 year old condenser outdoor unit and some more freon. Sounds like a simple fix right? I am relieved that that was it. Well, there isn’t a hose near by, so he has to acid wash it. Oh and by the way its a big unit, he needs to add 2 lbs of freon. I don’t know any better, so I’m like ok sure. Do what you have to do man. It’s hot. He gets it working, I sign the receipt, and pay the man about $600. Tech fee, labor, acid wash, freon. I get it. He leaves.

30 minutes later it stops working.

You can bet I called him back asap. He comes back about two hours later, and he fiddles around a little bit more. It works, he leaves.

Saturday comes, and it stops working. He doesn’t work weekends. Week of June 4th. He comes back one of the days this week. He is here for a few hours. It starts working again. He tells me to check this pipe outside, and make sure it doesn’t freeze over. If it freezes over, then call him, that is a bad sign and I will have to replace everything. He also tells me that if it doesn’t work, hes going to have to order new parts, new everything. So if it stops blowing cool air, let him know. He leaves.

The AC works for the rest of the week and THANK GOODNESS works through the weekend, when I had my family over for my nephews graduation. However, come Sunday after everyone leaves…the AC stops working.

Monday June 11, the tech gets called. He says cool, he’ll order the parts. Tuesday I realized he didn’t give me an estimate. He says that he doesn’t know until the company gives him in the invoice (really?WTF is that? I’m not that unfamiliar to really think that’s how it works)…. He doesn’t contact again for the rest of the week, nor does he pick up his phone. Call his main office, and they tell me they won’t send another tech because Ryan is already familiar with our case and the new techs wouldn’t. Wow. Great communication system you have there AAA Repairs. Frustrated by friday and a hot weekend. I’ve had enough.

Understand me, the reason why I kept calling and going back to this company and this tech is because, I PAID MONEY. And their receipt says I have a 90 day warranty. He needed to fix this, its his responsibility. Well, I was so fed up by the weekend that I took it as “I paid that money for freon and wash”. After I accepted that as a loss, it was time to let Ryan know that he’s off the books.

Called Monday June18. He didn’t pick up (Surprise, Surprise). He gets a message saying I no longer needs his services.

Tuesday no call back. Leave another message. IT IS SO HOT TODAY. After working 10 hours I go home to a steaming oven called my condo and I want to cry (and maybe I did a little bit, but you can’t tell because I was sweating and crying). Enough is enough. Remembering that I used Service Magic to find my locksmith (who was wonderful by the way) I decided to take this problem to them to find me a competent A/C guy.

Valpo Services calls me in about 5 minutes. Says he can come the next morning 9am. I’ve already missed a lot of work dealing with the other guy, can he come earlier? I hold my breath. He says sure, when? And I reply, how early are you willing to come? 7am it is!

Right on time Walter shows up. He resets it. The a/c is working, so he can’t diagnose it. Tells me to call again when he comes out, he won’t charge me for the next trip. I go to work. When I get home, the A/C is down again. He comes right away. Can’t get it to work, he has to go to the company Carrier, to see if my warranty is still good. I will need a new reversal valve, he wants to make sure its covered since my unit is fairly new. He doesn’t want me to spend money that I don’t have to (hm, I like him already!).  Another night with no A/C.

Thursday comes, and he calls back. The unit is covered under warranty,everything except the reversal valve. Thats what he suspects is broken. He wants to try out one more thing before having to resort to buying a new unit. (He suggested buying a whole new unit for a couple hundred more than, just the reversal valve. A new unit would only cost a little bit more, but it would come with freon and all warranty covered parts for 10 years). He puts a booster on my unit. If it doesn’t work, he won’t charge me for the parts and labor since I would have to buy a new unit (what a good man). Worked for about an hour and it went down again. Call him back. Looks like I will need a new A/C. He comes back, I fill out the paperwork, and he’ll be back to install tomorrow.

I have A/C. The new unit works, and he will install a new thermostat. I am still holding my breath, but Walter and Valpo Services has my confidence and if anything goes wrong, he will be the man I’ll call.

Wish me luck that this drama is over and I can keep cool the rest of summer!