Greg Vs. Water

Water and I generally get along very well. I've always been a pretty good swimmer and I take a shower almost everyday whether I need it or not. I drink lots of water too, of course most of it is in the form of coffee or beer. Thats why I can't figure out why water has been out to get me lately.

First, I suppose, is the water in the form of humidity this Summer. I don't do well with humidity and I've been known to sweat in very well air conditioned buildings. Perhaps I'm working too hard. Its felt like our Summer has been replaced with the Summer from Florida or swampy Washington, D.C. The temperature only goes down to about 75 at night and there haven't been many breezes, except during the massive thunderstorms.

So of course in the midst of all this heat what is the worst thing that could happen to me? That's right - the air conditioning in my condo goes out. But its not really that simple. A few weeks ago I noticed some water near the bathroom door on the tiles and carpet. I immediatly accused my friend Pete of being responsible somehow becuase I couldn't figure out where it came from (The theme for this entry was his idea by the way) Within a few days lots of water ws dripping from the top of the door frame and I investigated the problem via the access panel in the ceiling above. The Air conditioner air handler is up there and it seems fine, but I found a pipe off to the side that is leaking- mostly becuase it is open on the end and not attached to anything. I look around to see if it has detached from some where but I couldn't see anything. The pipe keeps filling up with water and dipping down into the wall and soaking my carpet. I was able to stop the drip for a little while by siphoning off some of the water and angling the pipe up to stem the tide. This seemed to work for a little while, but when I came back from Harrisburg (See previous entry) the problem was obviously back. The carpet was wet again and the house smelled like cat pee.

When I finally get the plumbing and A/C guy to come check out the problem he is a bit perplexed. Why is there an open pipe here? It makes no sense? I kind of figured that but it was nice to have it confirmed. We knew it was a "condensate drain" - because Air conditioners sweat even more than I do, but my A/C had been off - where was this torrent of condensate coming from? The plumber thought it was from my upstairs neighbors' unit. This is not even my pipe that has been raining on me for a week. To stop the leak he did the sensible thing and capped off the pipe. Leak stopped. A/C back on again. But of course when I told my Dad the architecht what the plumber had done he knew that the water had to go somewhere and within a few hours the leak had been "transferred" up to my neighbors' condo. Of course it was her leak to beign with but I still felt bad for her.

The plumber did come back to fix my neighbors' problem. A few times in fact. These guys are getting very tired of coming to this building. Not two days after everything is "fixed" and the carpet is almost dry (thank you wet / dry vac) I come home to find I have no air conditioning.
I hope against hope that it isn't a big problem. I let it run for a while and adjust the thermostat- but the room temperature stays at 81. I went up to the roof to check the heat pump unit- its running but not doing anything. Fortunately I was going away for the weekend to go camping so it would have to wait till next week to find out what was up now.

Of course camping is great -being out in nature and the fresh air and cooking stuff over a fire- but its also sort of the Murphy's Law of vacations - anything that can go wrong will. Our first night was fine - we cooked and drank our prohibited beer. Saturday morning we got in the car to go check out Hickory Run State Park's big attraction- the boulder field. Apparently the boulders were left there by an unthinking glacier probably a long time ago. But it sounds kind of cool and its more exciting than another field of grass so off we went. As soon as we stopped in the parking lot by the field the skies opened up as if on cue. It was one of those rains you get in the movies - as if someone had just flipped a switch. Pete and I did manage to get out of the car to check out the rocks, which actually were kind of interesting in the mist and pouring rain. Perhaps needless to say we got hit by a few more torrential down pours on Saturday causing us to cut and run, our camping experiment only lasting one night. So it was back to the relative comfort of my city apartment- not as wet but still a bit steamy. It would still be almost two weeks before my air was working again.