Out Of The Heat (or Finally Getting A/C!)

I’ve been complaining about the heat in my house since my very first summer here. Because my house is so old, the insulation is pretty bad. So when it gets hot in LA, the heat gets trapped inside even if it cools down outside in the evening. There have been plenty of nights where it’s over 90 degrees inside my bedroom when I was going to bed.

I have never really lived in a place with a/c (my last apartment had it but it was facing a wall in the kitchen so it was useless). And I wanted to get some sort of a/c for my house. But there were issues from the beginning. Until recently, my house had fuses and there wasn’t enough power to run an a/c. Then when I got circuits, I was told that I would have to still watch how much power I used because there is still very little power in my place.

Next was the issue of trying to find a portable a/c unit that wasn’t a swamp cooler (because it does get too humid in LA to use one) and didn’t use a ton of power. Once I found that, then it was the issue of finding one that wasn’t insanely expensive. I never found anything that seemed right to me so I never got a portable a/c unit.

I was talking to my landlord last month and we were making small talk about the heat. I mentioned the lack of a/c and he said that because of my house set up I was pretty limited in my options. I said how I really wanted to put a window unit in my dining room, and he said that it couldn’t block the communal driveway (my dining room looks onto the driveway and there is about a foot of room between my wall and the driveway path). With that new restriction, I started to do some research again.

I actually found a low profile window a/c that doesn’t stick out that far and is energy-efficient so it doesn’t go over the power limit I have in my house! And since I hadn’t asked for anything for my birthday from my parents, they agreed to buy it for me!

Once I knew it was on its way, I had to figure out how I’d install it. Fortunately, the directions were available online so my dad and I both researched them. And when I was at brunch with my friend Jane a week ago, I mentioned the new a/c unit and she said that she had installed one before! So she agreed to help me out when it was here!

This past Sunday was installation day. Prior to that, I had made a trip to Home Depot because my dad discovered some fine print in the directions that would require me to drill a piece of wood onto my window sill. And my dad and I had multiple FaceTime calls so he could look at what I was doing.

It was actually pretty funny when we were on FaceTime trying to figure this all out.

On Sunday, there were dozens of phone calls/FaceTime calls to my dad while Jane and I were working and then we also had to make another Home Depot run. But after a couple of attempts (and thanks to my power drill and saw that my dad got me years ago), we were able to install it!

I’m sure this sounds silly, but even in the couple of days that I’ve had it this a/c unit has made a huge difference in my life! I got it installed just in time for another heat wave in LA and I’m finally getting to work in my house in reasonable temperatures.

I’m still super nervous about how much more expensive my power bill will be, but there was a little guide on the a/c unit that said if you ran the until 8 hours a day for 3 months it would only cost an extra $48 a year. Hopefully that’s true.

I’m so glad that my parents were generous enough to get me this a/c unit. I’m so happy that I was able to install it and that Jane was willing to help me (and we did this in the heat since the a/c wasn’t in yet!). And I’m so excited that I will not feel as sick inside my house during a heat wave and feel trapped since I have to work in my house.

Hopefully when I eventually move one day this a/c unit is as easy to uninstall as it was to install. This thing is totally coming with me wherever I go!

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