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[arkabee]

arg, i need to vent.

my lady has recently (closed last thrusday morning) purchased a home.  yay!  honestly, it's nice but the lot is gorgeous.  on a little lake, yadda yadda yadda.

well, i've certainly learned alot about mortgages and etc.  and now i have the wondeful opportunity to learn how to do more new things.

such as, install a garbage disposal, etc, etc, etc.

however, it turns out that the compressor in her heat pump is toasty toasted.

growing up, predominately in snow climate, i'd always heard "electric heat _bad_, gas heat _good_".  nowadays, especially in a milder climate (comparatively), i'm a bit happier with electric heat.

and today, when the HVAC technician was out at the house, i learned that heat pumps are becoming more and more energy efficient!  yay!  and that  while older heat pump technology would generate "body heat" levels of heating, whereas natural gas would go to the 140s F, nowadays heat pumps will go to the 120s F.  yay!  isn't that wonderful news?!

so, the blower unit under the house is just a blowin' and a blowin'.  had been since saturday, when she started moving in.  (and in another "first" department, this was the first time i ever carried a full sized refrigerator.  before, i's always used a dolly.  but when all 4 people carrying the fridge had access to a dolly, and forgot to bring one, one doesn't point fingers...).

well, the tech says "oh, it's a trane".  apparentyl only trane resellers work on tranes because they are the only ones trane will sell parts too.  a circuit board had "popped" so he wired around it.  in the long term, it costs a little bit of energy efficiency.  in the short term, the blower worked normally again.

yay!

so, now he gets to looking at the unit outside, which earlier had been determined i would have to wash the coils of this weekend.

so, aside from the ant infestation, what do we find out about the unit?

well, compressor is causing the breaker to trip.

why?  because the compressor is fucked.

why?  well, it's always possible that maybe it was hit by a thunderbolt thrown from the hand of Zeus, but...

1. It's a replacement compressor!  (and it turns out that the lady remembers that this was on the "home sheet".  and i vaguely remember making the retarded statement of "oh, look honey, it has a new a/c compressor!").  hvac tech states "usually when the compressor goes out they just replace the whole unit, since it costs about the same.

2. it's not a trane!  yay!  so, i'm not the only one who's going to have trouble getting parts from trane apparently.  it's a tecumseh.  which, supposedly, is some random mid-grade.

3.  it's no the right size!  yay!  it's 3 1/2 ton and it's suppose to be a 3 ton!

4. the refridgerent pipe coming in is 1/2".  which was then conencted to 3/8", doing bad things to the compressor due to constricting refridgerant gas or something.  it made sense at the time it was explained.

5. the fuck*ng jackass of a son of a bitch asshole who installed the piece of shit didn't bother to wire up the heater, which keeps the oil in the compressor warm, which helps to keep the armature lubricated, which wold help stop the compressor from fuck*ng itself!  yay!  yay jackass!  woohoo!  go team!

and by "not bother to wire up" i mean they left the wires hanging.

yay!

i'm excited.

[side_show]

arkabee,

I totally sympathize, just remind your SO that at least she's not renting the place, where as in this case, she'd probably still be calling her landlord and wonder when or if the problem will be fixed at all.

Our house is being built as you read this. Three weeks ago there was a foundation, now there's the full structure with windows, doors, etc. The building is happening so fast.

Needless to say my SO and I are terrified. Your post basically rounds out exactly why we're terrified. Having your own house means 1) a lot of shit can go wrong and 2) you are responsible for having it fixed, which often means getting someone to come in and try and tell you about things you never before thought you'd need or care to know about, and then this person hands you a bill, and it's very hard to know if you're not being played like a deck of nudie cards.

We try to comfort ourselves that we were lucky enough to get in on a special program for low income first time home buyers that builds new energy efficient homes. Yes the entire house will have a 5 year warranty, and many of the features will have 25 year warranties - but we've had to make a lot of decisions that are just, well, paralyzing. For example, we had a choice between around 5 shades of beige for our carpeting. Who cares, right? I mean they are all beige. But then we factor in that this is carpeting we'll be living with for the rest of our lives or at least the foreseeable future. Suddenly there's all this weight on the decision. There's the "I'm still young" part of my mid 20's self that thinks "Who gives a fuck, just choose a beige. They're all beige," and then there's this new emerging adult part of myself that thinks about things like durability and how stains will show up. (My SO and I picked a whole bunch of the cat fur off our clothes and placed it on the carpet, and basically chose the carpet that the fur was least visible on.)

As a fellow traveller, I welcome to the banal and frustrating world of adult choices.

[pmcd9]

we've had to make a lot of decisions that are just, well, paralyzing.

Home ownership is a lot like paralysis.  Cos you can't move, get it.

[AugustWest]

Aw, it's just part of the deal.  Here's something timely to think about:  home mortgage interest is tax deductible.  That means about 1/3 of the interest you pay directly reduces your federal tax liability.  Since you are in the early years of a mortgage, almost all of your house payment is interest.  So, whatever your spending, you're probably saving more on your tax bill.

Of course you have to pay property taxes now, but that's a different story.