The weather here this week has been thick. You know that hot, sultry summer feeling when it’s in the 80′s and you’re moments away from a big storm and it’s sticky and thick and just ‘ugh’ and you can’t wait for the storm to break the sky open and let some fresh air into your life?

That’s how it’s been here for a week.

So last weekend I got the A/C running and the house felt awesome in comparison to the oppression outside as I slaved away with my shovel.

Then Sunday night just before midnight, I noticed it was getting a little muggy in here. The air was still blowing in the house, but it was thickening up. I checked the thermostat and it showed the temperature rising. I investigated and found that the outside unit wasn’t running. The furnace and crap in the basement was working just fine, but the actual A/C unit at the side of the house had stopped. No matter what I did, I could get it going again.

I tried again Monday morning to no avail and we suffered through a sticky day and sucky-ass night for sleeping. On Tuesday morning I got up with the kids to get them to school and the house was so stuffy (even with windows open and fans running) that I just had to try something. I went to the thermostat and kicked it on.

The outside unit jumped to attention and cold air began flooding the house with relief.

Around noon, I noticed the same thickness setting in even though the furnace was still blowing. The outside unit had shut down again.

This got me wondering whether it ran a certain amount of time and just died or whether it ran just fine until it kicked off and then wouldn’t kick on again. I tried all day and into the night, but we suffered through another restless night with the humid air making it generally suck to be in bed.

We called this morning to have someone look at it, but they can’t get here until Friday.

Around noon today in a last ditch attempt at some comfort, I tried turning the A/C on again…

…the fucking outside unit spun into action and cold air filled the house again. This time I vowed not to turn it off and set the thermostat to it’s lowest setting.

Finally around 9:30 this evening we just couldn’t take it anymore (yes, I let the A/C run for 9 hours staright). It was down to like 65 in here (a cold, A/C 65 – not a sweet spring day 65) and I moved the thermostat back to 70, effectively turning off the system. A little while later when the temperature rose enough to trigger the cooling to turn back on…

…nothing. Just the furnace blowing unconditioned air.

So now I know that turning it off once it’s running stops it from turning back on for a period of time (right now that period seems to be about 24 hours), but why the hell would that happen? I’ve looked up more A/C info than I ever care to read again and found nothing. I’d rather find some easy fix myself than pay for someone to come out and do some simple-ass thing and make it run correctly again.

As I type this it’s back up to 70/71 in here and starting to feel a little like the thickness is creeping back in. The weatherman said the suckiness is going to break with big storms on (you guessed it!) Friday morning!

We’ve had such a run of fucked up little annoyances since moving in here that it’s making me wonder if the house was built on an ancient indian burial ground and it’s just a matter of days before my kids are sitting in front of a static filled TV screen announcing, “They’re here…”

So, I’m going to keep trying to get the unit to kick back on, but if my observations are correct to this point, it should be until tomorrow evening before it does.

It makes no fucking sense…