UPDATE 10:43am - It seems that writing this rant out helped! Immediately after I posted it, my phone rang and it was Direct Energy! The woman calling was returning one of my messages, but we aren't sure which one, except she was able to be a heck of a lot more helpful! She booked a technician to come to my house TOMORROW afternoon to take a look. Apparently they don't normally work weekends, but under the circumstances they are. Thank god.
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I moved to Edmonton in 2012. Before and after I moved I was told - by a LOT of people - that it did get hot in the summer, but it was a dry heat. Well, they lied. Or the climate has changed so much that they're now wrong. In the summer of 2012 it got very hot - and humid. There were a few dry heat days, but mostly it was humid like southern Ontario. I was NOT a happy camper.
I don't do well in heat. I hate heat. I loath heat. My last several major vacations were all to cold places - Antarctica, Churchill Manitoba in October, and Yellowstone National Park in March. :-) I've never been anywhere overly tropical, and I never plan to go anywhere tropical. My one exception may be the Galapagos islands, but that's simply because of the wildlife.
In the fall of 2012 I purchased a new furnace from Direct Energy because the one in the house I purchased was over 30 years old. I was a little concerned that in the middle of winter the furnace would stopped working and I'd be up shit creek. So that was my priority. At the time, however, I asked them to provide me quotes for both a furnace and air conditioning. But I opted to go only with the furnace thinking I could get buy without a/c.
Well I changed my mind after the summer of 2012 was over, and in the summer of 2013 I called Direct Energy and asked them to come install an air conditioner after all! I'm SO glad I did. The a/c is a Lennox (like the furnace) and has a 10 year warranty. Plus Direct Energy provided me with a free 3 year protection plan that included regular maintenance of both the furnace and a/c. So there was no reason for me to have to spend any money on either item for many, many years. But I also didn't anticipate that I'd need to - because they were brand new!
It's now the summer of 2015 and my wonderful a/c has broken. I actually didn't turn it on until the end of June, when I was back from vacation, so it's only been on about 1.5 weeks total this summer. About 3 days ago it started acting up. First off, the 2nd floor never got cool enough, which bugged me, but I thought maybe it had something to do with the vents, so I fixed all that. Then I changed the program to make it cooler at night than in the day. But after about 24 hours the temperature on ALL floors was well above the set temperature on the thermostat. No matter what I did, the a/c was not able to cool the house to the set temperature.
The main floor stayed between 23 and 24C, but the 2nd floor is now up to 28C. The a/c is set to 18C! Yeah - something is definitely wrong. So 2 days ago I called Direct Energy to ask them to come take a look. I called around 6pm and reached some sort of after hours call center where they told me they couldn't deal with a/c, so they'd have to send my message to the main call center to respond to the next business day. Well, on the next business day I received no call back. So around 3:30pm I started calling them again. I was put in the queue, but after 10 minutes or so it would then announce they were not available and ask me to leave a message. So I'd call back.
Last night I then called the after hours call center again and explained what happened. They took my info - again - and said they'd mark it urgent. Well, this morning has come and gone and no one's called me back. But around 9am or so I finally managed to get a real person on the regular phone line. However, all they did was take my name, address and phone number and say they'd have a tech call me back.
2 hours later - no call back.
I seriously doubt my a/c is going to be fixed for this weekend, which means I'll be spending the weekend on the couch in a stupor of sweat. I already slept on the couch last night, which helped a bit. I'm going to sleep on the couch until the a/c is fixed because there's no way I'm sleeping in 28C+ heat upstairs.
Ironically, 4 of my 5 cats slept in the living room with me, but Pippin slept upstairs. Why she would want to sleep in that heat, I have no idea, but she has a choice. All 5 of them could also go into the basement if they wanted, but none chose that option. I could sleep in the basement too - but it would require me to sleep on the floor and I'm not that desperate yet.
If a Direct Energy technician doesn't call me back today, I'm going to be upset. Well ... more upset.
I also found out that while they do have 24 hour emergency service, it's only for furnaces and hot water tanks, not air conditioners. I have no idea why that would be. People can die just as easily from heat as they can cold. And no one can die of the lack of hot water, so I'm not sure why they'd need 24 hour emergency service for a hot water tank.
[grumble grumble grumble]
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