Catching up...

Kind of left you hanging out there, didn't I? Yeah, sorry about that. So, air conditioners...

After leaving a message with the warranty company regarding our broken ac unit, Mister C sat on the couch mumbling things like:

"Every damn house!" and "Just paid off the balance this morning!" and "Ridiculous!" and "Had enough of this!" and on and on. Eventually I figured out that he was actually considering replacing, not just repairing, our air conditioner. It boils down to a few things.

When we bought our home twenty one months ago, we got a really good deal because it was a foreclosure that had been bought by an investor. No doubt the investor made money on the deal, but we got a good deal. And then the market continued to drop. So now, twenty one months later, it's definitely worth less than we owe on it. In other words, we're not going anywhere any time soon.

Additionally, this is the second time we've had to repair this air conditioner. In talking with our neighbors, we figured out that it had already been repaired at least twice prior to our buying the house. At this point, it's only twelve years old yet it's already broken down at least four times? That doesn't seem right.

And lastly, it's undersized and inefficient. It strains to keep the house at a steady temperature and it seems to run constantly. Loudly at that.

So, the debate was between fixing the ac (again) for the short term, or replacing it altogether with a correctly sized and much more efficient new one. Since it looks like we're going to be here for at least a few more years it seemed like getting the new one was the way to go. We'll never get our money out of a new air conditioner but at least we can enjoy consistent cooling and lower utility bills while we're here. And, since one of the main reasons we have a home warranty is to cover an air conditioner break down, we can drop it and save the monthly fee.

Okay, so now we've made a decision and it's time to move on it. Mister C works with a gentleman who recently replaced his ac after spending literally months debating the pros and cons of various manufacturers and units. He shopped around for the best deal on the best product and replaced his in January. He got a really good deal. Mister C called this walking consumer reports/salesman's nightmare and got the name and contact information of the guy he had worked with. Mister C said he would call the guy. On Saturday, this guy called Mister C. He said his co-worker had called him and convinced him he needed to give us the same deal he got. And he agreed. Now, we did want a slighter different unit because it fit our needs better, but we still got a heck of a deal. But the best part was that they could install it on Monday.

So basically, by the time the warranty company was getting around to calling us back, we already had the new ac being installed. I was able to start basking in the cool happiness that is good air conditioning in Arizona in July by Monday afternoon. Better yet, it is so quiet I don't even know it's running! And that in itself has been worth it.