Damn, it's hot

The worst possible thing has happened. It's been like a million degrees for as long as I can remember now and my AC went out today. OK, maybe that's not the WORST possible thing. The wost possible thing would probably be if I were forced to watch 'N Sync videos for all eternity while Chuck Norris delivers roundhouse kicks to my nards. But this was pretty bad too.

The wife calls me while I'm at work to give me the bad news. She says she thinks it's the thermostat. So I leave work early and drive to my local Lowe's store to pick one up. As soon as I pull into the parking lot, I feel out of place. The lot is full of large, very manly pickup trucks, while I pull into a spot in my four-door sedan with car seats in the back. But that's OK. I'm used to it.

I go in, and with the help of a friendly employee, I find the thermostats in the electrical department, right where they ought to be. I tell him I'm looking for a programmable thermostat, and I ask him if he knows anything about therm because I want to make sure I get the right one. One that's compatible with my AC device. He tells me that he doesn't know much about these products, but Jim would be able to help me.

Presently, Jim arrives on scene. He's a burly, bearded man. The friendly employee tells Jim that I'm in the market for a programmable thermostat. And I tell Jim that I just want to find out which ones will work with my unit (heh heh ... "unit"). Jim and Friendly Employee Guy both assure me that all of the 'stats that they sell are universal and will work with any type of AC device.

So I think I'm done. But then, Friendly Employee Guy walks off and leaves me with Jim, who promptly asks me, "how many square feet do you have in your house?"

"I don't know. I have a small ranch," I answer truthfully.

Then Jim launches into a diatribe regarding people having cooling devices for their homes that are not powerful enough to cool their second story. This quickly evolves into other ways that foolish homeowners aren't getting the most out of their cooling devices. This is all good information, but I just want to make my purchase and get out. But he's very passionate about this and I can tell this is an important subject for him, so I indulge him by nodding politely at intervals during his speech, all the while I'm trying to imprint this message into his mind: dude. I have a ranch-style house. I have no second story. And I don't care about this other crap that you're talking about.

My powers are weak apparently because he doesn't stop until his phone rings. I take the opportunity to thank him, grab a $30 thermostat, and get the hell out of there.

I get home, break out my tool box, which is probably laughable by my father-in-law's standards, but which suits my meager purposes very well, and I get to installin'. Only, something is obviously not right. There are all these extra wires spilling out of the wall that seemingly have no place in the new thermostat.

Debbie does some digging and finds out that we have a heat pump. I'm still not entirely sure what that is, but the thermostat that I bought clearly warns that it will not work with a heat pump. So, time for another trip to Lowe's, this time with family in tow.

I return the device that I had just bought two hours before and start looking for one that works with a heat pump. Luckily, Jim is nowhere in sight this time around. Unfortunately, the only one that I can find has a price tag of $100, which, granted is well worth the benefit of keeping the temperature in my house below Tatooine-like levels, but it's a little more than I'd like to spend, so we make a trip to The Home Depot.

I head straight for the electrical department, but I find no thermostats. I snare a passing employee and ask him if he can tell me where to find them.

"They're in Plumming," he says to me. "On an end cap across from aisle 30."

I find this to be odd and suspicious, but I go to aisle 30 anyway and there they are. And luckily, I find one that fits my needs for only $40. I grab it and go.

I get home, once again open my toolbox, and install the new device. It seems to work perfectly, only ... no cool air is coming from my vents. And the outside unit is not functioning.

Debbie discovers that service technicians were called out on two separate occasions to replace blown fuses in the AC unit for the previous owners of my house. So, I go outside and start poking around the thing.

After about 45 minutes of jabbing at various places, cursing the heavens, and pulling on things which I know neither the names nor functions of, I finally find the fuses. A quick internet search tells me that these fuses are cartridge fuses and that there is no way to visually tell if they are blown or not.

Jump in car. Drive to Home Depot. Buy new fuses for $10. Install said fuses. Damn thing still doesn't work. We'll have to call a service tech tomorrow I guess. We probably should have done that to begin with, but oh well. At least we got a snazzy new thermostat out of the whole thing. Plus I got to use my tools, which is always fun.