Getting the Boot

I know that my air-conditioner is old. I've had a few specialists look at it, and they all date it back to the early-to-mid seventies. Aw, just like me.

I've had minor problems with it off and on since I bought the house. It leaking freon is the biggest irritant. The latest problem was that the unit wouldn't turn off. It would stop blowing cold air into the house according to the thermostat and all that, but the unit ran 24 hours a day.

Just imagining what my electricity bill was going to look like because of this was giving me fits. I figured that it was time to buy a new unit. A guy showed up from a local company yesterday to give me an estimate. Nice enough fella. Rode a nice motorcycle. Quoted me a price of $4000 for all the new stuff, plus another $500 to $1500 for new ducts and boots.

(That's a boot pictured above. The one in my kitchen floor rusted out a few years ago, and you can look at the dirt floor of the crawl space while boiling rice, if you like.)

I spent most of last night going ai-yi-yi, trying to put these expensive pieces of this puzzle together in my head. I've got the credit, but Kate and I are also planning a few other big items for the upcoming months. I went to sleep last night, and that damn unit was still humming away outside.

Today, another A/C fella arrived at the house to take a look-see. This man certainly didn't arrive on a motorcycle. He had that look like Tim Robbins has in the first part of "The Shawshank Redemption". Didn't say a whole lot and even seemed a bit scared of the dog.

However, he found that there was a part that was out-of-order inside the system. He said that he could go get the part and quoted me a price of $25. $25.

I asked him, but what about a new system? He said pretty much why get a new system when he can fix it today for twenty-five dollars? Yeah, the unit's old, but it's going to make it through September. Worry about it after I'm done worrying about those other things. He could still get me a new boot before winter if I wanted, but he'd have to charge me $75 on top of the $20 unit price unless I wanted to install it myself.

Dude fixed it up and I heard the unit turn off for the first time in a week. It was so quiet. I could hear children playing in the park. He didn't even take a check, said that he'd send a bill. I told him that I dug his company's service, specifically the woman who answered the phone who remembered me from two years ago. He said, yeah, that's Mama.

So this weekend, I'm getting underneath the house and see if I can take off the old boot. If I can, I'll save $75. If I can't, apparently I'm still somehow saving $1405 if I want to look at it that way. The whole thing still has me pondering. Was the first guy too high, or was the second guy too low? Hell if I know.

I do know this: I'm looking forward to autumn.