Day 2 in the A/C switch or "But I'm totally fine with them cutting a hole in the roof"

Yesterday was more of the "fun" part of the switch to the refrigerated air, what with crane and all the hoopla and the "Hey, look at your lovely new condenser and your new high-efficency furnace."

Today, it's more about, "Hey, can we drill a hole in the side of your house for this big pipe? Oh, and then we're going to drill a few more holes in your walls because we can."

Today, we're discovering all the downsides to installing something in the house that wasn't here before. There are all kinds of pipes and wires that have to be added and holes being drilled to accomodate these pipes and wires. The workers are doing a great job of keeping everything neat and the pipes and wires are concealed as well as possible in plastic casing. Most of it is in the garage so it's not a huge deal. And then came the request to drill a hole in the side of the house. Something about the way the new, totally rockin' 2-stage furnace vents makes it unable to use the same vent as the previous furnace. Actually, the new furnace could use the same vent as the old furnace if we don't mind tearing up the wall in Paul's nook to get to it. That didn't seem like a very viable option to anyone. Option #2 was they would drill a hole in the side of the house for the 6-inch PVC pipe with the funky vent cap on it that would protrude 8 inches from the side of the house. My frustration level was pretty high when I called Paul with that tidbit of news. We're already concerned that the placement of the new condenser unit will draw the ire of our HOA, which is very strict with making homeowners adher to the C&C for the development and we didn't exactly get their permission before we started this project. When I mentioned the new PVC vent to Paul, he was worried about that upsetting the HOA with that as well. I was just concerned about how ugly eight inches of PVC pipe would be sticking out of the side of my house (even though the A/C guy, who is all of 20, was so nice to add "But we'll definitely paint it for you!").

Paul came to the rescue with Option #3--vent it out the roof. (Oh, sure--it seems so obvious now.) It means some extra feet of PVC pipe in the garage that will partially block one of the glass block windows there. That I can live with much easier than pipe protruding from the side of my house. I think we have one more day of A/C work--I know the cat will be thrilled when it's completed. He slinked in to the guest room while I was doing some work in there and is now refusing to come out from under the bed. Typically he's not allowed in that room but I decided that one time wouldn't hurt. Especially after he hissed and did the low, gutteral meow that indicates he'd just prefer to stay where he is. That pretty much sealed the deal.

Update @ 5:00: The workers finished up for the day a little after 4:00. When I went outside to move my car back into the garage, this little guy was bumping his way around the garage. I was a little antsy about getting it out of the garage both because I didn't want the possibility of a dead hummingbird and because, quite honestly, I'm a little freaked out by hummingbirds. They're spastic and you never know where they're going to go and they just flit around too fast.

But I braved the hummingbird long enough to get a few pictures. Here Zippy, as I named him, is in front of some of our new wires and pipes and things (happily, the PVC pipe didn't have to be in front of the glass blocks). I kept trying to convince him that the best way out of the garage was not through the ceiling but Zippy was very persistent in trying. And a super-zoom of Zippy resting on the garage door opener, hopefully rethinking his ceiling plan.
After a stressful 45 minutes for both of us (I had to keep checking every few minutes because I'm obsessive like that), Zippy finally found it's way out of the garage and I quickly shut the door.