Drama of an Air Conditioner

Our home has two air conditioner units. We had them both serviced right after we moved in, because it didn't seem like the down stairs unit was working properly. It turned out that a bracket up in the attic had broken, so the fan blade was getting caught, thus causing the air not to blow in the down stairs. The man gave us an estimate to fix the problem, but we were given a home warranty when we purchased the house so we wanted to have it cover the expense.

Fast forward two weeks;  I finally received the paperwork for our warranty and immediately put in a work order to have it repaired (did I mention the down stairs has been a healthy 85 while this part was broken?). Needless to say, we were beyond ready to have this problem fixed.

The repair guy came out, and he came to the same conclusion as the first guy (well that's good at least), but he continued to tell me that a support beam was in the way and he wouldn't be able to replace the part without having the insurance company come out, move the beam, and have an inspector check the work. Ok, WHAT!?!?! You're telling me, I have to have a support beam in my home moved before you can fix the problem? Just imagine a very large gulp, and lots of dollar signs spinning around in my head. All I wanted was cold air........

So what do I do? I immediately call the insurance company, but they won't cover something like that (of course), but the lady was kind enough to get me a few names of people that could do the work. Next I called our home builder, Pulte. Thankfully they are one of the few companies that are still in business. Side note: everybody- inspector, realtor, and even the ac guy, said our home was really well built, so at this point I have a hard time grasping that they put a support beam in the way. I was not looking forward to moving a beam. All these back up scenarios has been running thru my head: we would adjust; we would learn to love the heat; we would just wear swimsuits in the house; we could have 5 floor fans running on us constantly. I mean, we made it two weeks- what's a few more months of struggle until the weather cools, right?


I give the Pulte rep a run down of my problem and after a few calls back and forth, she asked me to send some pictures. I did that, and she forwarded them to the ac contractor and structure guys that built our home. After a day full of calls and emails, it turns out that *GASP* the beam is not in the way, and the repairman was just to lazy to do the work. Trust me, I was still irritated, but I preferred that outcome.

Now it was my turn to call the home warranty company and let them know that 1) I needed a different company to come out and FIX the problem and 2) I paid their first company a service fee and he did nothing. The lady was very helpful, and hopefully early next week this problem will be fixed and we'll have ac again. In the meantime we'll just stay upstairs where it's nice and cool :)