On Monday we had a pretty big rain storm and after Emily came home I noticed there was water dripping down onto the sofa from one of the light fixtures. I pulled the fixture out of the ceiling and found the dripping was coming from one of the air conditioning pipes. Fortunately it was not coming from the piping itself, but the insulation wrapped around it. The insulation had a small nick in it and the water was dripping out from there.
Our AC is the “split type” where there’s a small inside fan unit, and then the main compressor is located outside on the side of the building. I followed the piping out where it ran up to a compressor on the 6th floor of the building. On the 6th floor, I leaned out the window and saw that the insulation on the piping had been eaten off. And by eaten off, I mean literally. It looked like some rodent had decided the foam insulation made a good dinner.
So, we called in an AC repair guy to look at it yesterday and this afternoon he and his buddy came to do the repairs. He took the windows out, tied a rope to the ceiling support and jumped out the window onto the top of the awning over the greenhouse window that runs along the front of the fifth floor. He added a new foam covering on top of the bundle of pipes, taped it all up and caulked up the ends for good measure.
All I know is, I sure as hell wouldn’t go hanging around outside a 6th floor window even if you paid me, but this guy did.