Saturday, August 25, 2007

To air condition or not, that is the health question

About 6 years ago, I finally came to realize I needed air conditioning in my little one bedroom attic apartment. So I bit the bullet and bought the smallest, cheapest one on sale. I had a friend install it and it was great. I don’t know how I had lived in that apartment for so long with out one. That cheep little air conditioner lived threw 2 moves, and about 4 years. When we moved here we used the air conditioner, but then did not have a place to store it in the winter, so it was put on the balcony with tarps, wrong move. Water got into it, and mold and other things. We did not notice this because it was inside the actual air conditioner. What we did notice is that we were sick all that summer, lots of fevers and just not feeling good. An allergy and immune system specialist told us to take a look at our air conditioner as a possible cause. We did but did not see any thing, then one day James was cleaning the filter and saw mold in the air conditioner. It had finally grown to the point that we could see it. Bye bye air conditioner.

So the next summer we brave the heat, but our kids could not handle it. So we buy the cheapest one on sale again. In the window it goes, works great, but there seems to be a small problem with the drainage. We work with it and things seem fine. Lots of construction on the building, concrete dust and who knows what else was all over the place as they removed our balconies. So we had one year of that (no joke, we just got our balcony back after a year of not having it.) So stuff got into the air conditioner. It seemed to be working ok. Two week ago they replaced our windows on the balcony so the air conditioner had to come out and then go back on the new windows. The air conditioner did not fit on these windows and that drainage problem we had before became a real problem. We started to get sick last week, for most of the week. The air conditioner was off one day, as we turn it off when we go out. When James turned it on our two year old went “Stinky”. A bad smell was coming from the air conditioner. The water had not been draining properly and we had mold and who knows what else in there. Out it went. James called a cleaning place, it would cost us $5.00 less to have it cleaned then what it cost us to buy it in the first place. Ok, not doing that.

Now the good thing is that we had spent money we did not have when they took our balcony off, we had it on good authority it was going to be a long time before the balconies would be replaced. We bought a small portable unit that got us threw the fall of last year and most of this year as we waited for our balcony. Sure it was more expensive then the window unit, but it did not weigh as much, and was very easy to install, and you could move it from room to room if need be. Well worth the money in my mind. Most important though, the water is not going to pool and become stagnant or moldy. I know we were getting sick from the window air conditioner. James did some research today on air conditioners, and for the cost for the size of air conditioner we are going to need for the town house is going to be about the same for both the window unit and a portable unit. I know what one we are going to be trying to get, the indoor portable unit. I do not want to be made sick from an air conditioner ever again. It turns out that it is a common source of illness in the summer, unhealthy air conditioners. So if you are suffering lots of sick days, or just keep feeling off or mildly sick all the time and don’t know why check out the air conditioner.

No comments:

Post a Comment