My heat pump melted yesterday. Seriously, it melted. I called the technician to come out and look at it because it wouldn't kick on. I had it fixed less than a week ago but it up and died again.

The technician said I had blown a transformer and when he went to put a new one in I heard a 'poof' and thought, oh this is not good, please don't make me do CPR on the technician. A bit later he said that several components in the heat pump were literally melted; he said the breaker should have tripped but it didn't and the electric melted parts.

He said my heat pump was what is known in the business as a 'construction model', the cheap kind that people who are building houses for sale put in the houses to maximize profit. Indeed I bought it new for only $1000 several years ago and thought I was getting a bargain but it has had continual problems.

He said I could fix it for ~$1500 and expect more problems or I could buy a quality system for $5400. Long story short (I will tell of the family drama in another thread) my mom and sisters are paying for the new system and I will make monthly payments to repay them.

The system is supposed to be installed tomorrow. One problem is the garage door doesn't work so I don't know if they can get it open easily. I had a company come look at the door a couple weeks ago and the guy said he would order parts and return to fix it but then he told his boss that he could not fix it because there was so much clutter in the garage (piles of dirty and clean clothing and bags of trash) that he could not access what he needed. He said nothing about the problem to me. I told the manager I would clear the area and she said she would send someone different to fix it.

And yet more...

I still have the electrical problems in my house. No power in two rooms and no reason identified for the grey smoke that filled my bedroom two weeks ago. I am trying to get an electrician here (want two estimates actually) but I have been missing phone calls since I sleep in day.

And with no insurance if my house burns I will lose everything. I know not to watch the news but I did and a local house burned and two people escaped and one died in the fire.

Anyway when I went to feed my horse a bit ago it was still 22 degrees. Inside the temperature has only dropped three degrees in fourteen hours.

And that's my story.