Archives for September 2015

Thursday at the close of my working day I sauntered from the office to the house (it’s a short distance) and met with quite a surprise. In the house is was nearly 90 degrees! The central air conditioner was blowing…warm air. Our normally learned Nest thermostat looked positively befuddled.

The dogs, who look forward to the end of my workday as the warm-up to their dinner, saw that clearly something was wrong. While I was opening windows & doors to get some ventilation happening, they trotted back to the comfort of the office. It’s constant 74 degrees assured by a very nice Fujitsu Halcyon mini-split air conditioner that I’ve described elsewhere. Sensible creatures, our dogs.

It was around 7pm when I telephoned our regular AC service company. While they would gladly take the after hours works at a premium rate, they had no-one available to investigate the trouble. The best they could do would be the next morning. Ugh!

So, I consulted that know-it-all Google, and literally stumbled upon Richmond’s Air. At first glance several things that appeared to be in their favor;

• It happens that they have an office nearby on Yale Street.
• Google reported that they officially closed at 9pm so they were "still open."
• Their home page includes an image of an American Standard AC unit….Our Brand, as it happens.
• Their home page also includes an image of a Labrador Retriever, also a house favorite (we have two!)

I called. They answered. James said that he wasn’t at the office, but he wasn’t far, and would be at our location in around 30 minutes.

While we waited. We sweated. Stella had me cut open the last of the windows that had been painted shut when the house was painted. Nixcon did a great job on the painting. Highly recommended.

James showed up as promised. He was quick to notice that the compressor simply wasn’t running. Some electrical parts had to be replaced, but had those in his truck. In about an hour he had the system restored to functional.

The whole exercise, from "Hi" to "Bye" took less than 2 hours. By 9:15pm the house was starting on it’s way back to habitable. It actually achieved our usual nighttime temperature around 11:00pm.

Better yet, the cost for this little adventure, with parts, was just $50 more than our usual company quoted merely for the pleasure of their company. I can’t recall the last time that something potentially catastrophic, like an AC failure, was dealt with so easily.

Richmond’s Air has won our future business.