Miles and miles of ductwork!

One of our Austin tenants was all upset that Mandi and Lee weren’t answering her calls last night (well, Lee never answers calls unless you’re in his contacts), because her air conditioning was down and it was 80 in her house. She happened to hit a moment when Mandi was spending time with her family and we had 7 guests at our house (not stressful at all, nope). She then called Carol, so she got a hold of someone, at least. This is when an answering service would be great, but we really don’t have enough properties to justify that expense. So, we need to remember to be vigilant.

I know it’s hard when you can’t get in touch with your landlord, but to be honest, I don’t think I ever tried calling on a Sunday night, even when the fridge went bad and leaked. We cleaned it up and called on Monday.

But, these are different times. I used to deal with all sorts of imperfections in my apartments and rental homes, but today’s a little different. I think with rents so high, people expect 24/7 service, and I don’t blame them!

In any case, once Mandi got back to her phone, she contacted Lee and  we got things rolling. Felix will work on her house today. Whew, since they had a sick child at the house, we do understand the need and sympathize a lot. I’d might be tempted to say, “Most HVAC repair people don’t work on Sundays, anyway,” but since we had our office work done on a Sunday, I’d be untruthful!

That’s hot.

Speaking of Woes

It’s always something when you get a new system. I just happen to have to stay in Cameron today rather than going into the office in Austin. So, I walked into the office this morning expecting cool breezes to be wafting over me. Instead, I saw the thermostat telling me it was 86 in the room. That’s hotter than it was with no air conditioning. And the system was blasting away.

Now, Lee had it set to 82 at night (he’s thrifty), but it shouldn’t have gotten up to 86! So, we are investigating as we speak. At least it’s down to 84 now. Balmy! We know there’s some more work to be done on the system, so we are sure Felix’s crew will get to the root of any problem when they come back.

They will be returning in any case, because they need to get some more parts to finish the vents going to the offices and a few other things to tidy up the arrangement, so we aren’t going to go crazy cleaning the office any time soon. At least we’re partway there!

From Ductwork. To hide or not to hide? That is the question, by Chris Drake

Hey, Let’s Do This!

The House Beautiful magazine for September showed up at the house this weekend, and it had an article on painting things you normally would not consider painting. The very first thing it showed was a room with a powder pink air conditioning duct running through it. It looked fine, if you like pink. I did a little digging, since I can’t share that photo, and found this article on painting air ducts from an Austin company. It showed the red example here. Hey, red is our corporate them accent color! I like the idea of making those silver ducts into a feature!

Of course, we are trying to create a neutral backdrop for events, so maybe the red isn’t ideal. But, you could always cover it with tulle. That’s what Mandi would do.

I’ll update the temperature as the day goes on in the comments.