My parents used to say that whenever it rains, it pours. When things were tough, like health problems or unforeseen financial crises, the worst seemed to never let up. We had a roof leak one year that resulted in several thousand dollars worth of water damage in our attic and the top floor of our house. Just a month later, we had a plumbing leak the affected the ground floor separately. All in all, my parents weren’t prepared for the catastrophes. They had to borrow money from my grandparents to make the necessary repairs before more damage was done. Now that I’m their age, I’m experiencing the same sort of pitfalls, time and time again. I started noticing acceleration issues in my car and was hoping I just needed a new fuel pump. Usually it’s a relatively low-cost part and with minimal repair fees. Instead, I was told that my transmission is slipping and only had a few hundred miles left on it before system failure. Needless to say, I was devastated with the news. To make matters even worse, right after my car was fixed, my central air conditioner was acting up and cycling with more noise than usual. Fearing the worst, I started pricing brand new air handlers. To my dismay, things would only get worse from there. My technician explained that whenever an air handler is swapped out, the condenser unit outside has to be replaced as well. The coolant from the old air conditioner is still in the lines leading outside, so hooking up a new machine without at least flushing these lines can result in major breakdowns. Therefore, the condenser unit along with the refrigerant lines need to be swapped out whenever your air handler is replaced. This was easily an extra $4000 in my situation because my system is large to begin with. Sometimes I just wish the metaphorical rain would let up already.