AC Care Tips for Dummies Like Us

I still have no doubt that we're among the very last in Israel's cold mountainous region to have gone modern and gotten an airconditioner for heating. Since we never replace anything while they still function, even poorly, it took us a pretty long time to make the splurge. This is the first full winter we've had it.

On the whole I really love heating the livingroom, plus kitchen and dining area with this airconditioner. The big bonus is that I can set up the folding clothes driers and get the clothes perfectly dry, too.

We hardly used it in the summer for cooling. One reason is that the heat doesn't bother me all that much, and the other is that we renovated the kitchen and had the fridge plugged into that socket, while the work was done.

We've tried to remember to clean the filters, though it's hard to know just how often...

A few weeks ago, I began to notice that periodically the AC would stop, and the little screen would say "HI." After it didn't go back on, within what I considered soon enough, I did an "experiment." I pulled out the plug and then after a couple of minutes, plugged it in and it worked. Then that happened on Shabbat when it's forbidden to play with the plug. So, I waited and eventually it went back on.

So, on the other day, in the midst of the cold stormy weather, when my husband reported that it had stopped and showed "HI," I told him not to worry, even though the AC had been making lots of noise, sounding like a hovering helicopter. Then he reported that only cold air was coming out. So I told him to pull the plug, and he turned it off. A bit later, we cleaned the filter. It was the filthiest I had ever found it. Actually, for the first time it really looked like it needed a cleaning. But I was afraid to turn the AC back on.

The following morning, since we had paid for extra  service, I called Tadiran and told the woman who answered about what had transpired.

"Did you clean the filter?"
"Yes, we just did."
"So, turn it on."
"Really? I had been afraid to."
"No need to be afraid. Tell me if it heats up. It may take a few minutes. And don't worry about the HI. It just means that the AC is defrosting itself."

That's it, thank Gd. Now I know two new things about our AC.

1. HI means the air-conditioner's defrosting, so allow it to continue.
2. If the motor begins making a lot of noise, turn it off and clean the filter.

I hope that helps others. I'd hate to think that we're the dumbest of all.

Enjoying The AC/Heater

It's almost a year since we got a couple of AC/Heaters installed in the house. We're about the very last people to get them. One big advantage is that they aren't on the floor. Another is that they both heat and cool, although we rarely need them in the summer, especially the one in the bedroom. 

Unlike previous years, our house is rarely cold. I haven't let it get to that super-freezing state which made me suffer terribly. As long as there's electricity, bli eyin haraa, I can turn the AC/Heater on. It has a thermostat, of course, which keeps the temperature even and turns it "off" when necessary. Most of the house is now much warmer than it had ever been in the winter because of the AC/Heater. I still have a small heater going on in the den.

As you can see in the photo, I can also hang laundry in the living room on rainy days or overnight. It dries pretty quickly. Yes, I understand that's a sign of very dry air. We drink water, besides coffee. 

I'm very happy we finally have the AC/Heater. Better late than never. Life has sure changed, thank Gd.

Heater/Cooler Update

The other day I posted that I feared we bought "a lemon" concerning our new airconditioner/heater. Twice I've had to call for repairs within months. So the technician came yet again and said that the actual machine is great, but the crew that installed it made mistakes. Apparently there have been major leaks with the "gas."

So, the technician told me that he'd "reinstall it," whatever that meant. OK, I didn't have to do anything at all. He didn't even want to cup of coffee or glass of water. I didn't bother him. It's not one of my fields of interest. And as I've written before, we're probably one of the last people in Israel to buy one of these machines that both heat and cool. 

I just hope and pray that the two I bought will work without more than the routine care, cleaning the filter. That we did learn how to do. My husband climbs up to remove it, and I do the "cleaning."

Modernizing can be rather complicated, but our house is now so much more comfortable, thank Gd, bli eyin haraa-don't tempt the evil eye.

Airconditioner Blues, Did We Get A "Lemon?"

It wasn't that long ago when I, in the voice of Baile Rochel, joyfully reported that we had gone modern and gotten those air-conditioner/heaters.

I just hope that ours isn't a "lemon." A few months ago we had it serviced, since water was coming down onto the couch. And now I called the agent I had used to complain that it's not heating up.

Grrr... I'm not a happy camper. Bli eyin haraa, the smaller bedroom one is doing its job. I started turning it on for an hour or so before going to bed, so the room will heat up a bit. I hardly used it in the summer, since my bedroom is pretty cool and shaded, especially since the neighbors put up an industrial kitchen next door that blocks the sun.

Winter has arrived, thank Gd, and the rest of the house needs to be heated. So, I'm waiting to hear from the guy who has promised to "take care of it."

Report on the New Heater/Cooler Airconditioner

• I absolutely adore the new feel of the house.
• I love coming in on a cold day and actually feeling warmer inside than I had been outside all bundled up. 
• It's so nice that our rather small living-room and even smaller bedroom no longer has to be cluttered by a radiator.

Everyone keeps asking:

"Aren't you sorry you didn't get them ten (or more) years ago?"

Well, in all honesty, maybe not ten or more years ago, but certainly five or so when prices began to drop drastically. I remember that the earlier ones, which we would have certainly been replaced a couple of times by now, weren't a fraction as good as today's standard models. It's sort of like the "advantage" of a baby walking a bit "late" and saving her/his parents money on shoes, since those early walkers need more pairs of the more expensive ones.

Today's models also have better motors and thermostats, so they go off a lot, and the house stays comfortable.

Our neighbors had a very early model, and everytime it went on our lights dimmed, because the neighborhood electricity supply was connected and insufficient. I'm not the type to keep berating myself for something in the past that can't be reversed. Let's just enjoy what we have today.

Baile Rochel Going "Modern"

That's in centigrade

Toasting the toasty room, even before
the pictures were rehung. 

OK, maybe for some of you, this is very 20th century deja vu, but here we are in the middle of the second decade of the 21st century and this family, OK more accurately an alte kakker couple, just got its very first modern "airconditioner," which unlike the ones of the mid-20th century heats as well as cools.

When we planned and built this house over thirty years ago, we tried to be as modern and clever as possible. I had read of "passive solar heating" and hoped that our large eastern and southern windows, plus specially constructed double walls, would make expensive heating almost unnecessary. The idea was that the free solar-from the sun- heat would enter the house and stay on sunny days. Even though our winters are the only season it rains, and even snows some years, most winter days are sunny. Of course, clever me ignored the simple reality that the summer sun would bake us...

Somehow we did survive those early winters by using a simple kerosene heater in the winter, a few small blow-heaters and the heat a large family plus guests add to a house. In the summer, we'd leave the windows open and pretend that it wasn't all that hot. But as these magic heat/cool airconditioners became more and more common, our bodies just wouldn't cooperate with the "con." Having a fan blowing the hot air in the summer just made the house like a giant convection oven. And in the winter I went around in half my sweater wardrobe and multiple socks each day.

Finally, after muttering for years that "we must get an airconditioner," I assigned the job of choosing a technician to my savvy son-in-law. We ended up hiring a young man who had been a student of mine. I wasn't all that happy about having a former student see the mess my bedroom is, but I was tired of needing to sleep with a hot water bottle, dressed heavy pajamas, socks and gloves most winter nights. And one of the reasons why our room stays a mess is that it is too cold to enter to clean. It was more like a giant walk-in freezer, and it's impossible to straighten up wearing heavy thermal gloves made for arctic winters.

For years I'd been saying that I only function a few weeks a year, spring and fall, since it's generally either too hot or too cold.

Well, my student was happy for the business and sent a couple of young neighbors, his cheerful technicians, to do the job. I had tutored one of them a number of years ago, too.


My husband was home that day and had the chore of clearing out things from our room and the living room near where the airconditioners would be. I still have lots of things to put back in place. Though I'm mulling over the idea of actually getting rid of many... Yes, I know that the trick to a clean and orderly house is to "purge" or "declutter" unneeded THINGS. The big problem is the definition of "unneeded."

The mess and the big decision of what can really be thrown out must wait until after Shabbat...

And of course you want to know how much better we feel now that there are airconditioners here in the house to keep us warm. I think for that answer, we'll have to wait until next winter, since Israel is now experiencing an "early spring." That's no surprise, since Ol' Murphy rules...

And Now for The First Time in Months...

The fan is silent. I turned it off right after Simchat Torah ended. It's suddenly chilly outside. We don't have an airconditioner, and fans take ages to cool the room, the large open-plan L shaped livingroom-diningroom kitchen. So, I turned it on rather early in the summer and haven't turned it off, not even when we've gone away for Shabbat.

Our house was planned and built to keep in the heat during the winter, so it can get awfully hot in the summer. I keep the shades down and windows, which face east, as open as I can considering the badly planned "double windows" we have.

We didn't even have the fan and shades in the early years we were in the house, when the kids were little and lived at home. I don't know how we survived, but in those days nobody had airconditioning, so I guess we were used to the heat.

I guess we really ought to get airconditioning, which also will provide a more efficient way to heat in the winter. Any recommendations?