Wednesday, October 2, 2019

YouTube miracle


A while ago I wrote about how you can learn to repair pretty much anything via YouTube. No matter how arcane your problem, someone’s uploaded a homemade video on how to solve it.

Well, when I got home yesterday afternoon, the house seemed really warm, and when I lowered the thermostat, nothing happened. Believe me, yesterday was a day when you didn’t want your AC non-operational.

I’d had an issue some months ago when the thermostat just went blank, and YouTube showed me how to replace the batteries. I didn’t even know thermostats needed batteries—I don’t recall ever having to replace them before. So that was my starting point. But still nothing happened. And the actual temperature actually went up a degree while I was doing it.

Ulp. Off to YouTube.

I was watching some guy walk through the steps of determining why the blower might not be going on. After checking the circuit breaker (not tripped), he lost me when he hauled out some kind of electricometer and read out how many volts were dancing on the head of a pin, and then more dancing in the thermostat. I despaired: “Dude—I don’t want to take a course in being an electrician; I just want AC.”

And at that very moment, I heard the electronic click come from the thermostat. I ran to the front door, and hallelujah, the unit was working. I set the temp for four degrees lower than usual, just to make up for the panic.

God bless YouTube.



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