Saturday 7/27- Sure enough, whatever Ramie had last week, I picked it up in full force. Friday I could at least think and function for most of the day, but today I was feeling really groggy and slow, and the coughing & sneezing has begun. I started the morning by prepping everything to make a batch of chicken wild rice soup that would last me the next few days, and then tried to take it easy the rest of the day. Ramie made some breadsticks to go with the soup for dinner, but otherwise, there wasn’t a whole lot else going on at our house today.
 |
| The pineapple is very small, but we grew it ourselves, which makes it special |
Tuesday 7/30- Yep, something is definitely wrong with the fridge/freezer. The repair guys came fairly early in the morning, and it didn’t take long for their determination, the fridge and freezer have died. The repair guys thought that this was a hopeless cause and there was no easy way to repair it other than putting a whole separate external cooling system on the back side of the fridge for the cost of 100,000 colones ($200). This really sucks since it's only 2.5 years old but we weren’t sure we wanted to risk the suggested repair since they didn't seem completely confident and it could easily have been another issues, and this external unit was really just a band aid fix. They didn’t have the parts with them right now anyway, so we told them that we needed to think about it. After they left, Ramie went into town to look at the selection of refrigerators that the local stores had. There are two stores in town that sell appliances, but the problem that we will run into is that we have a small kitchen, and we need a countertop depth fridge for it to fit and the doors to open fully. This really limits what might be available here in town, or even anywhere in CR.
After checking both stores, he came home to inform me that one of the stores had only one that would fit, and it was not cheap! The other store said they MIGHT be able to get something delivered from another location the next day. Ramie then jumped on his computer and went to that store’s website to see what options they had that might work with our dimensions, sent them 3 options that we would consider, and waited for them to respond.
This is NOT something I felt like dealing with while I was still feeling like garbage. Between the tiredness, brain fog, and total fatigue, thinking about fridges and making decisions like these was not helping my mental state.
On top of all of this refrigerator “excitement”, today the solar panels for our future project were being delivered. As we previously mentioned, the main hardware is being shipped in from the US, but shipping these large panels would be prohibitively expensive. The company where Ramie found the solar panels is located in San Jose, but he was able to coordinate with them to have them delivered to Uvita, but unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to deliver them to our house. Ramie would have to meet the delivery driver at a drop off location in town to pick them up. When the driver got to town, he contacted Ramie to meet him and pick up the panels. Fortunately, they JUST fit in the truck, width-wise, and they didn’t hang too far out of the back of the truck with the tailgate open (remember- by truck we mean SUV, so there isn’t a lot of extra room back there). Ramie called me away from my work computer for a little while to help him unload them. I gathered as much strength as I had in me and helped him unload the 6 panels.
 |
| (6) 560watt panels should power about 80-90% of our load. |
Later in the afternoon Ramie finally got a reply from the store about the 3 refrigerators he inquired about. Unfortunately, he was told that only 1 was available, and we could not get it here in Uvita until next Monday. None of this is ideal. If we had time, we would go back to Golfito where we bought the original one, where we would have a better selection and price, but time is not on our side. It’s too difficult to live without a functioning fridge/freezer when you hadn’t been planning in advance for it.
This left us with only one, very expensive option here in town. I guess, it is what it is. Since we don’t have a truck capable of transporting a fridge, Ramie reached out to Randall to ask if he’d be able to meet him to pick up the fridge and bring it to the house, then he left to go get this taken care of. About an hour later he and Randall were backing the truck up to the front door with a new, almost identical fridge to the one that just crapped out. We slid the old one far enough out of it’s space to disconnect the water line, then moved it out of the way. We pushed the new one into place, hooked the water line back up, and plugged it in. By this time it was late afternoon. We put a few small items that wouldn’t spoil in the heat into the fridge and freezer as it cooled itself down, but left the rest of the food in the coolers where it was likely to stay much cooler than it would in the fridge at this point. We’d let it cool overnight and put everything away tomorrow.
 |
| 2 Fridges in the same small kitchen. Which is the new one, which is the old one? |
Wednesday 7/31- I’m still not feeling better but managed to work for a few hours in the morning. Ramie asked me to log off early since he could tell I was overly stressed, and I knew that he was right. I should have taken the whole day off, but I had several meetings that I had to get through first. After getting the fridge late in the afternoon yesterday, it hadn’t gotten cold enough to completely restock & reorganize before we went to bed. As I mentioned, we only put a few things back in the fridge overnight and would take care of the rest today once the fridge had fully cooled down. Today after I finished with my meetings I started organizing the fridge. Unfortunately, even though they are nearly identical, this one has one of those little outside doors that opens for the items that are in the door shelves, which makes the organization plan much different than the old fridge, and I’m kind of picky about things like this. The space just wasn't working like I had planned.
As I started the restocking, I realized that I was very easily exhausted, even by not doing very much, more so than I realized before. I think this sickness hit me harder than it did Ramie. I did a little of the restocking & organizing at a time, letting the fridge/freezer & myself recover in between. By the end of the afternoon I still hadn’t taken all of the things back out of the chest freezer that had to go into the fridge freezer, but at least all of the things that need to stay frozen are staying frozen and everything was out of the coolers. The rest of the things that had to go back into "freezer storage" would just have to wait a little bit longer.
This morning while I was working, Ramie spent some time at the local ferreterias (hardware stores) getting prices on the materials he would need to install the solar panels. He will need to make 7 supports to tilt the panels to the south at the proper angle to get the optimal sun. Along with the supports, we also have to run the electrical wires and find a way to get them into the laundry room where the inverter and batteries are going to be. This will likely involve running additional conduit. He found what he needed, placed the order, and the materials to start the project would be delivered next week. He will have his work cut out for him on this project, I think!
The Official Casa Costa Breeze end of July rainfall total was 16.26 inches
Thursday 8/1- After thinking about the dead fridge some more and what the first repair guys said, Ramie made the decision to get a second opinion about it. This other tech came out mid-morning today to look at it but came up with a very different problem and solution than the first repair guy. While the answer was different, Ramie didn’t like the way this guy diagnosed the issue. He was only at the house for about 10 minutes and spent most of his time talking on the phone to his boss about it. This guy said it was a bad compressor, but didn’t do anything other than remove a metal cover and look at it. Well, if that’s the case, the fridge has a big sticker on the front that says that the compressor has a 10 year warranty on it. Ramie asked if it would be covered under warranty if the compressor is the case, and the guy told him in order to get warranty work done, we had to go through LG, his company is not affiliated with them and doesn’t do warranty work. Before he left, the tech told us that he would have his office send us a quote later in the day with the cost of a compressor replacement.
Ok, Ramie being the researcher and cost-comparer that he is...
got on the internet to find a way to reach out to LG directly, and for our area, the call center is in Panama. After discussing the issue that we were facing, they put in a service ticket with an authorized LG repair company here in Costa Rica who does calls in our area and said we should hear something within the next 48 hours. Later in the afternoon Ramie got a phone call, in Spanish of course, and both Ramie and I had a very difficult time understanding the person on the other end. We could only make out bits and pieces of what the person was saying. The guy on the other end was very understanding and mentioned something about a number then hung up. A few moments later the phone rang again from the same number and a person that spoke broken English talked to us. This was much better and we were able to get across the issue in both English and Spanish. The person on the other end told us that there was a technician available in Uvita right now and asked for directions to get to our house. No more than 10 minutes passed, and the tech was at our door. This technician actually got his tools out, hooked up some diagnostic equipment, and determined that it was indeed a bad compressor and explained everything to Ramie.
He then asked if we had our original receipt. Ramie started laughing and told the tech to hold on a minute while he went to get it. Ramie came back with a receipt, but it was completely blank. The receipts here fade extremely fast both due to the climate, and likely due to the type of receipt paper/ink/heat activated stuff that they use, and nothing was legible. The tech asked Ramie to see if he could get a copy of the receipt from the store and send a picture to him, because if he could get it, the repair would be done for free under the warranty. (Ok, there’s a big sticker on the front of the fridge that says 10 year warranty, and you can tell by the serial number and the model that this fridge is not 10 years old. I get the rule, but still…)
We bought the appliances in December of 2021 in Golfito, which is the duty free zone on the way to Panama. This shopping area has a couple dozen stores with lots of large and small appliances, and much better prices than the rest of the “regular” stores, not to mention you also don’t pay the 13% VAT (essentially sales tax). That trip was really quite the experience, and made for a very hectic day. If you would like to read all about that shopping experience check out the blog by clicking Here.
Since the chain we bought the fridge at in Golfito also has a store here in Uvita, which was actually the same store that he just bought the new fridge from, Ramie went back into town to asked if they could reprint the receipt for us. Unfortunately, even though they are the same “name”, the duty free store is a different entity and they can't get receipts from there. Ramie, not willing to give up that easy, got home and jumped on his computer to find contact info for the store in Golfito. He sent them a text message and an email explaining what had happened and asking if they could help.
He also received a message from the 2nd repair company with their quote to replace the compressor: 392,000 colones, or $750.
UGH! That’s on top of the $2,700 we just had to spend for the new fridge. I had not been planning for this and really did NOT want to pay this much just to keep our food cold!
In retrospect, that wasn’t a terrible price to repair the fridge. For example, if we were to put the fridge out there for free on the local Facebook pages and mention what the cost is, someone would scoop that up in a heartbeat and repair it. When compared to the price of a new fridge, this repair would be a really cheap way to get a good fridge. Also, if it was still day #1 that the fridge crapped out, we hadn’t bought the new fridge yet, and this was the option that we were given, we may have considered it.
Hopefully we have some luck on our side with the receipt and can get the fridge repaired for free.
Around bedtime Ramie checked his email one last time. He received an email from the store in Golfito, asking him to send them a text message and to include some specific information. Ramie sent the message with the new info that they asked for, and then we headed off to bed. Our fingers were crossed that they would respond with a copy of the receipt. One other option, that was once again less than ideal, would be to drive down to Golfito on Saturday to get it in person. It's about a 2 hour drive south, one-way, so it's not something either one of us particularly wants to do, but if it makes for a free fridge repair, we’ll do it and try to make the best of it.
Friday 8/2- Ramie started the day by cutting the grass and pruning some of the plants this. I was starting to feel a little bit more like myself, my energy levels were returning, and I worked a normal Friday. When Ramie finished with his morning yard work, he checked his phone and there was a message from the store. In that message were 2 pictures of the receipt. YAY! Finally a bit of good luck! His persistence with this fridge receipt thing paid off!! We should now be able to get the old fridge repaired for free. He quickly forwarded the pictures to the repair tech. At this point it would be a waiting game to get the part and get the repair scheduled, but thankfully it is not like it's critical at this point. It would be great if, after the old fridge is repaired, we could return the new fridge and get our money back, but it just doesn’t work that way here in Costa Rica. Returning something is next to impossible and even if it’s still “brand new in the box”, and if you can get them to take it back, you typically only get in-store credit. I guess, once this one gets fixed, we will have 2 full size, fully functioning, fridge/freezers. I mean, Ramie has been asking for a beer fridge! 🤷
Pura Vida!!
Comments
Post a Comment