In my home town of Louisville, summers are hot — that kind of sticky, humid, river-valley heat that leaves you feeling beat up and worn down. My parents battled the summer swelter by running our central air at full tilt. Our house was so cold on summer nights that I slept in a flannel nightgown with a down comforter pulled up to my chin. My best friend, on the other hand, grew up in a grand home built in the beginning of the 20th century with more rooms than you could count, beautiful gardens, barns and outbuildings — but no air conditioning, not even a window unit. It was during summer sleepovers at her house that I learned to keep cool by taking an icy shower before bed and by nestling a damp washcloth filled with ice cubes at the base of my neck just below my pillow. Her family practiced the old-fashioned ways of genteel summer living: They ate cold soups (try this chilled cantaloupe recipe), salads and omelet dinners (made on the stove-top so one didn’t have to turn on the oven) on their screened-in back porch (cooler than in the kitchen or dining room), they dressed in crisp white linen and cool cottons, and their many awning-covered windows remained closed during the day but were thrown wide open at sundown to let the cooler night

air in. (During the day, the awnings reduced the solar heat, thereby keeping the rooms cooler.) Other changes were made in my friend’s home come summer. The many fine Oriental and Aubusson rugs were pulled up and replaced with sisal and seagrass for the season, a tradition that was in keeping with practices of centuries before. my ac unit can't keep upValerie Balint, interim director of collections and research at Olana, Frederic Church’s historic home in Hudson, N.Y., explains that removing the heavy rugs was “a good way to get spring cleaning underway.”ac heater floor unit Typically, the rugs would be full of smoke and dirt, so not only did removing them for the summer give them a chance to air out, but it also lightened the look of the rooms. how often should my ac unit cycle on and off

Plus, Balint adds, there is an advantage to many seagrass and sisal-type rugs: They smell good. Similarly, all of the upholstery in my friend’s house took on a new summer look. Velvet sofas and silk chairs were covered in tight, light-colored linen or cotton slipcovers, which protected the fabrics from perspiration. Every room had at least two fans, preferably across the room from one another. (This works best if you have windows on opposite walls.) They would set one fan in a window on the windy side of the house to blow air in, and place another in an opposite window to blow air out. On particularly hot nights, my friend would fill a bowl with ice and place it in front of the fan blowing air into the room. The air would whip across the bowl, giving an icier chill to the room. As clever as this seemed to me at the time, my friend did not invent the trick. According to the White House Historical Association, Navy engineers in the summer of 1881 forced air through a box fitted with ice-soaked cotton screens to cool the scorching bedroom of then-ailing president James Garfield.

My friend also had a ceiling fan in her bedroom, which I later learned needed to rotate in the correct direction to cool the room. Most fans have a switch on their motor or base that changes the directional rotation from clockwise to counterclockwise. One direction (typically counterclockwise) pushes the air down, creating a nice breeze for the summer months, while the other direction (clockwise) sucks air up and evenly distributes it in the winter. Just stand under a running ceiling fan, and you can tell which way it’s blowing. Now that I live in an un-air-conditioned apartment of my own (I still miss the central air of my childhood!), I practice the cooling tricks and summer swaps I learned from my friend, and I think she would be pleased to know that I have added to her list: I have replaced all of my incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs. Not only do the LEDs lower my electric bill, but they also have no heat output. I do laundry and run my dishwasher only at night, when it’s cooler.

And lastly, I sleep on a pillow from Casper that supports my neck and keeps me cool with a dual-layer design. Of course, with the fans, the pillow, the bowl of ice and the cold shower, it can be hard to tell what’s really keeping me cool at night, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll take all the help I can get to sleep in the heat.My (ex)wife had a 2004 Toyota Highlander that was exhibiting some strange issues with the A/C and heat. In the summer while driving with the A/C on it would randomly just switch to heat and just as randomly switch back later. Sometimes bumps would trigger it or a sharp turn. Same would occur in the winter while using the heat. It would randomly switch to A/C and back. The problem was pretty annoying but I suspect fearing the possible cost to repair kept her from bringing it in for service. The issue seemed to get worse over time and with the horrible Louisiana summer heat and humidity quickly approaching she finally brought it in to get inspected and to get a quote.

The shop she brought it to “checked it” and told her it was the “temperature control actuator”. They told her it would cost about $500 to fix. After getting this information I went to Autozone and O’Reilly’s trying to find this part and what it costs. Neither could find this part. This made me pretty curious and wondered why no one could identify the part. So I went sit in my car and whipped out the iPhone to Google this part and figure out what was going on. I didn’t find any mention of a “temperature control actuator” for a Toyota Highlander but I did find lots of information pointing to what appeared to be the same A/C issue with the Highlander by many people. I found many complaining that they had to replace the A/C control assembly to fix the problem. The A/C control assembly sells between $700 – $1000, just depends on where you get it. Labor to replace it was between $300-$500. Many reported paying or getting quotes between $1200 – $1500 to replace it.

This was not looking good. I went back inside the store and confirmed the part was $700+ but they didn’t have it. Turns out this was a good thing. It caused me to go back to the car and start searching for that part. This time, I stumbled across someone who was a mechanic who ran across this problem with a client. He mentioned that after he took everything apart thinking he was going to have to replace the A/C control assembly he found the real problem. Apparently the issue is with the temperature control switch (knob) and the three wires connecting it to the control assembly circuit board had broken. This was especially interesting because it really seemed like it made more sense to me. The fact that bumps in the road would cause this to work and not work really made me think this was a short or something along those lines. I didn’t buy the other explanations personally because most of them would have only accounted for it not working entirely and not sporadically.I decided this broken wire issue had to be the problem and I would at least check this out before spending any money.

Figured I didn’t have anything to lose by confirming this. I went home and went straight at it. Tore the center console apart and got to the control panel. Tore the control panel apart and got to the circuit board (control assembly). Sure enough two of the three wires connecting the temperature control to the circuit board had broken off.Got it soldered again and everything reassembled and sure enough, it is working like a champ and cost NOTHING to fix it! Sad that most places wouldn’t attempt to solder it back but rather would just charge people $1500 to replace the whole control assembly. Anyway… with all that said I thought I would share and detail the process for others in the hopes of saving others a ton of money in the future. I highly recommend doing as others have suggested and replacing the ribbon cable you need to solder back together. Part of the problem with the current design seems to be that the ribbon cable is too short. This causes added tension when things are put together and adds to the issue with the wire breaking.

Also, you will or should know how to clean the old solder from the holes on the circuit board in order to correctly solder things back together. Use a desoldering pump to assist with this. If you don’t know how to solder you might be able to find a small local computer repair shop or trade school with people willing to do it for very cheap. Appreciate all the great feedback this post has been getting, makes you feel good to hear the positive comments. 5/30/2011 – Just slightly over a year since I put this post up and I think we have easily helped over 100 people either DIY or with slight help (soldering isn’t for everyone, thank God for computer or TV repair shops). At an average of $800 to have someone replace this board or Toyota to fix it well it looks like we have saved about $80,000 total. I know that number is on the short side too. Maybe I should get into the Highlander AC repair business. Hope everyone continues to find success with this and please continue to share your success here. I

t’s a great feeling to get to read all these comments! emove the knobs. These simply pull right off. emove the trim panel from the center console. Start at the bottom on one side and then the other. Work your way to the top. This is easily done with no tools and just a little force. here are six 10mm bolts to remove that are holding the center console in place. (Three on each side of console) emove two screws from both sides of the assembly. ry the bracket away from the control assembly in order to clear the alignment pins. nplug the wiring from the control assembly. There are three things to unplug. ou should now have the control assembly module completely removed from the console. In order to access the circuit board inside the black plastic housing of the control assembly, you will need to remove the screws holding the rear plastic cover on. Once the screws are removed you can separate the two pieces slowly. You can only separate it slightly as there is a ribbon cable connecting one circuit board to the other.