Wade and I had a bright idea the other night at Home Depot. We were armed with a $50 gift card and a little too much time to wander the store. We have talked for a while about getting a better programmable thermostat for our house. So we made our way to the appropriate section of the store and began to ooh and aah over the many wonderful features of the available thermostats. Some had touch screens, others were just plain. We opted for a lovely model that we thought would make our AC/Heating fully automated and we'd never have to touch the thermostat again.
Friday night Wade decided to install the new thermostat. He turned off the circuit breakers labeled with "AC" and "FURNACE". He removed our existing thermostat and the temperature of course began to rise. I know that Wade was very careful in labeling the wires, so when he connected the new unit and had no response, he was truly puzzled. He attempted to call the customer support service that the manufacturer offers, and of course they were "experiencing higher call volume than usual". At 9pm at night? Really? There are that many homeowners installing new thermostats on a Friday night? Apparently its time to bulk up your staff!
The hours slid by last night with Wade growing increasingly more frustrated. After no response from the manufacturer's supposed customer service, he decided that we had a faulty unit and began the process of re-installing the old thermostat.
Around midnight (now six hours without AC), here's what was on our wall ... the temperature wasn't THAT bad, but when we tried to turn on the AC, the furnace came on. So after a few minutes of blowing heat, things got a little sticky. We slept with every portable fan in the house in our master bedroom.
As you can see, this is probably not the ideal situation for a thermostat. This is the old thermostat, which is STILL not working after a nice sweltering night in the humidity of Georgia. Today's temperatures are predicted to reach the high 90's here in Monroe, with the heat index pushing things over 100 degress. AND WE HAVE NO AIR CONDITIONING.
Anyone want to come over this afternoon to hang out? No? Aw, come on.
Its just past 9am here. We have already had our neighbor draw a diagram of their connections, which show that Wade hooked everything up just fine. However, he just noticed that our stove went off when he flipped the breaker switch labeled "AC". Hmm. Wade thinks that he *may* have fried our AC system. Excellent. We have placed a distress call to a local AC company. Hopefully they will show up at some point today and save us from this inferno!
So who wants to let us (and our panting dog who will shed all her fur in this heat) come over?
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