More A/C Drama

At the beginning of the month, our air conditioner broke and the apartment complex had it fixed within a few hours. Well, last weekend (the 19th) it broke again just as my mom and sister were heading home to Kentucky after our week at the beach. Again, the apartment complex quickly had people out to repair it. Since it was only two weeks since they had added more freon, it was determined that our a/c had a leak somewhere. They added more freon and said they'd be out during the week to find the leak.

This past Wednesday (the same day that Uncle Tom was coming to visit- more on that later) the a/c man came and tested our lines and decided the leak was inside and not at the outside unit. To test for this he had to isolate segments of the inside unit, which involved soldering.

Unfortunately, he did not see the fire sprinkler located just above where he was soldering in our HVAC closet. Yep, you guessed it! Our sprinklers are heat sensitive, and he set it off. Water flooded everywhere! Luckily I was there to grab LOTS of towels, and we managed to keep most of the water in the kitchen- it was about three inches deep! However, it managed to soak the carpet and the pad in our dining room, linen closet, hallway, and come up through the linoleum in our bathroom.

They brought industrial strength blowers and dehumidifiers to dry everything out and remove all the excess moisture. They ripped up our bathroom floor and installed a new one this morning, and when all the work is finished we'll have our carpets cleaned. So, while our apartment is almost back in order with carpets back down and new pads underneath, they still haven't fixed our a/c yet! It actually went out again Saturday night while Tom was here (luckily it was a cool evening and wasn't too hot with the windows open and fans on) and again this morning. The a/c man should be here any minute to figure out a plan of action and fix it permanently!

We are so blessed that the new fire code sprinklers work independently! I can't even imagine if all the sprinklers had gone off and flooded our entire apartment instead of just a portion of it! At least we didn't have to evacuate our apartment during the cleanup process like our elderly neighbors did. All of the water leaked through the floor into the ceiling of the apartment below us. They had to poke holes in the ceiling to relieve the pressure and prevent the ceiling from buckling under the weight of the water. Our neighbors, Bill and Lenora, had to be put up in a hotel for three days so the maintenance guys could replace their ceiling and dry out the insulation in the space between our apartments. It could have been so much worse! Thank you, Lord, for keeping everyone safe.

There are a few good things about this entire incident:

1. It wasn't mine or Mark's fault:)
2. I don't have to deal with insurance companies trying to figure out who pays for what.
3. Jake LOVED all th commotion. I set up his exersaucer so that he was out of the way but still able to watch all the activity of people coming in and out. He was one happy boy:)
4. No personal property of ours or our neighbors was damaged.
5. No one lost their job over the accident, but hopefully he'll be more careful next time he's soldering and check for sprinkler heads:)
6. I got a new bathroom floor. I could never get the old one to look clean even after scrubbing it because of all the wear and tear marks that occur with linoleum. The new one is a better color and design, and I like it a lot better:)
7. It wasn't mine or Mark's fault:)