Adventures in Air Conditioning

View from the window

My air conditioner at the first place I stayed in Chiang Mai, Thailand didn’t seem to work very well when I moved in.  At first, the temperature didn’t get below 85F.  I gave it a day or two and then I told reception that my a/c was not working.  They sent a guy up who looked like he was about 16 years old...

He stared at it for a few minutes...

Then looked at me and said “ok?”  

"Not okay!"  I showed him the thermometer. “See? it’s 30C, it should be 20C.”  

He stared at it some more...

and stood there, looked at me, looked back at it...

Finally he opened up the panel.  "Great," I thought, "we're finally getting somewhere."  

He finally took the filters out and washed them in my shower.  It seemed to work and that night it got so cold I had to turn it off!  Hallelujah!  

The next day it crapped out again.  I told the front desk.  They sent the tech up again.  

He stared at the unit for awhile...

Then he grabbed the remote, pushed the power button and "beep!" it magically came on.

I had no idea what he did, I swear I pushed every button on that remote, but it seemed to be working.  He handed me the remote and said "Ok?"  There wasn't much I could say, the unit was running so I said "ok, thank you" and he left.

That night, the air conditioner was still not working.  After fiddling with it, I finally figured out what was going on.  It would run for about 1/2 hour then turn itself off.  What that meant was I woke up every 2 hours sweating from the heat, turned the a/c on, cooled down enough to go to sleep, woke up two hours later sweating from the heat, etc etc.  By the third or fourth go around, I had a screaming headache.  

I went to reception the next morning.  I told them “you keep sending the tech, and he’s a nice guy, but he’s not fixing the problem.”  They said they will send a real tech from “outside” the next day.  Great, so that meant I was looking forward to another hot night.  I went to the mall to see a movie with a friend.  

When I got back to my room, from down the hall I could see multiple sandals outside my door.  I rushed in to see five workmen in my room, one standing on my chair working on the unit, the tech I had before, two sitting on the ground by the window from what I can tell providing moral support, and another walking around.  I said hi to everyone and sat on my bed and watched.  They showed me that there was a broken sensor that they replaced. That was finally the end of the a/c saga and I happy to say it has worked ever since!