Losing my cool *updated*

Figuratively and literally.

The story thus far:

The coolant in my a/c unit has been almost fully evaporating every winter, thanks to pinhole leaks in the compressor. Being a responsible homeowner (and unable to tolerate heat), I contracted with a local firm for a replacement unit.

The guys showed up early the morning of May 26th and began the install. Forty minutes later, the salesman called me...they sold me a two-stage unit (dehumidifies,then cools), but he hadn't checked the connections. A two-stage requires two connector boxes, while my existing unit had only one. Adding a second doubles the cost and includes machinery with large shovels. No thanks.

He apologized profusely, changed the order to a single-stage, arranged for express install (the following Wednesday, May 30th), had the guys put my old unit back together and recharge it so I'd have cooling, and gave me a discount on top of it.

May 30th arrived, and the install was done. I had other contractors in the house as well; it was a busy afternoon. The a/c took less time than I anticipated, which was nice...I thought.

Naturally, it cooled off considerably outside, and I haven't really needed it much until the last few days. Imagine my surprise when I got home last night, and the room temperature was 3 degrees above the a/c set point, the a/c was on and merrily blowing...room temperature air.

I checked the inside unit (conveniently located in the utility closet in my kitchen) and saw condensation on the unit. Sure enough, it was starting to freeze up, a sign of extremely low coolant.

Called the company, they sent a tech out within the hour. He confirmed the low coolant level, as well as the fact that the brand new line set they just installed two weeks ago is leaking like a sieve.

Not happy.

They are supposed to come out today to fix it. I have no vacation time left, but will go home when they get there to let them in and hang out; my boss is ok with that (should be, given I put in quite a bit of unpaid overtime every day).

But it's ten a.m., and no one has called yet. Not the office, to tell me when they will be coming out, not the installers, to say they need to get in the house. They have until noon, when I will call, quite...irate.

If they say they've already been, and it is "fixed", heads may roll. Not adequately checking their work is how we got into this mess in the first place. They cannot call it "fixed" unless they turn the unit on (it's been off since last night), let it cool down to the set temp, and then wait 15 - 30 minutes or more to make sure it's cycling correctly.

And to think, I paid thousands for a new unit to avoid just this issue of coming home (the day before the hottest three day stretch in over a year) to a hot house.

So much for being responsible.

They came, they messed around for three hours, they fixed it. He looked a bit insulted when I asked him what number to call if I came home on Friday, and found it conked out again. Just trying to cover all my bases.

It is running well, even in our 95 degree, 98% humidity four day hot spell. I do need to adjust the (high up on the wall) register in my bedroom. It's in the "winter" position, also known as "Good heavens, don't blow any heat into this room!". The summer position, on the other hand, is wide open, letting the room (when I remember to close the door) cool quite well.

The final inspection by the city (which I didn't know I needed - the most frustrating part of this AND the little bit of construction work has been people not telling me everything involved up front) is this Friday. Assuming no issues there, I'm set on a/c for the foreseeable future