Sunday, July 6, 2008

Too hot to handle!

The heat and humidity are terrible here in Roswell right now. Tom walked the length of our short, flat, driveway to check the mail on Saturday and came back inside saying that he couldn't take a walk in the park. I'm so glad - I was worried about him getting heat exhaustion. He's so motivated to get out though.

One of our air conditioning units is not working but it's not affecting Tom at all. He gets chilled in a typical air conditioned environment. I, on the other hand, can't stand the heat. Currently, I'm living upstairs in our bedroom with the door shut and Tom is hanging out on the couch in the living room. It's not so bad - we have completely different tastes in tv shows and we're each comfortable, and we also read (Katie prefers the air conditioned room). We're in the process of getting estimates from air conditioning repair companies to compare. So far one company said we need a new unit and the second company said we only needed freon which lasted only five hours. We have a third company scheduled to visit tomorrow.

Tom has become so used to the warm environment now that when he comes to bed he puts on a long-sleeve shirt, fleece jacket, pajama pants, and socks. I put extra blankets on him and he's fine. That's all with the thermostat set on 80. I can't go any higher than that - I'll melt!

Anyway, he's doing well. We went to the clinic today and found out upon leaving that we have tomorrow off!!!

2 comments:

friendlymentor said...

That's interesting about Tom not minding the heat, Lisa. One of the things I noticed about being sick is that our bodies are furnaces, burning fuel. Usually I run very hot, meaning that like you, I have to be in air conditioning most of the time or I sweat a lot and get overheated. Once I was sick, the furnace inside me wasn't efficient any more and I was much more likely to get chilled because of all the work my body was going to just to maintain 98.6 or so.
As to the air conditioning, our main unit went out two years ago. A guy came and put freon in it and said, "you have a leak somewhere and this won't last very long, but if I put enough in there it will seal the leak at least for a while."
It lasted about 2.5 months but by then it was fall. The next spring we called the guy in, and he put in freon (there is some kind of sealant with the freon that goes in and tries to seal tiny cracks in the metal). He told us that we weren't keeping our air condition fins and coils clean enough so it was inefficient. After he put in Freon for the third time, suddenly it all got better and has worked fine ever since.
Maybe if you have a leak, but the compressor is good, you don't need to spend a lot of money on a new one, you just need to find someone who will work with you to find and seal all leaks. I wish it were that easy . . .

wiizii said...

Hello Family! It sounds like Tom is adjusting fine to being back home. I am sorry to hear about the a/c issues. Just last week, I had to buy two new window units for our house. It's hot and humid down here for sure. I'm glad Tom is getting up and around and feeling alright. Tom, you are nuts to go out in this heat to try to walk anywhere!! Go walk somewhere in the evenings where they have sprinklers running. The dampness on the ground and the night air has an amazing cooling effect. We crank up our sprinklers when we want to enjoy time on our front porch. It's the only way we can stand the heat!

I hope to see you all this weekend!
Love ya,
Elise