The fifth of July

This morning, my friend Wade and I had coffee in a local shop. It's a regular weekend ritual so we can catch up on family news. Wade does heating and air conditioning as a sideline, so he agreed to look at our inoperative AC unit.

It was slightly low on freon, something that allowed Mary a coveted "I told you so" yesterday. The outside unit was clogged with cotton from the ubiquitous cotton wood trees around here. But the A-coil wasn't frozen. It was clogged with cat hair and candle soot. Honestly, when he opened it, the coil looked like a piece of black cardboard. Wade carefully cleaned it with various brushes and a chemical cleaner. Air actually flows through the thing now! Yeehaw!

Lesson learned: replace the existing cut-to-fit filter with a pleated paper one. Sure, the cut-to-fit ones are nice because they can be washed, but unless the AC unit sucks up a cat, the filter won't stop cat hair. And candle soot goes right through.

When we finished, Wade and I cut some big slices from the layer cake Lyndsay made yesterday. He deserved it more than I, because my technical input consisted of holding the flashlight so he could see.