Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Hoping for cool

Update: they're done. Everything should be fine. I went and programmed the thermostat. Funny, it kept wanting me to set it to 85 for the times I was out of the house. Oh, nuh-uh. I know how long it takes to cool this place down and I'm guessing the "return time" is actually the time it kicks back to the lower temperature.

 The hottest I would go when I'm out of the house is 80. We'll see how that works.

I will say I learned that long hair isn't fun when you're hot...scalp sweat, and it accumulates in the hair and it's just ICKY POO. Or at least to me, raised with late-20th-century hygiene expectations, it's icky poo. I wonder  if this is why, in Victorian novels, women who developed serious fevers got their heads shaved, like Esther Summerson in "Bleak House." Because when you're deadly sick, you can't have your hair washed, and if you're feverish, you're going to be perspiring.

I also now see the wisdom of women in my great-grandma's day having a "summer kitchen" to cook and can in, so it didn't heat up the rest of the house. (And: canning over a wood stove wearing a long full dress, petticoat, and I suppose, corset - or did women take those off when they  were just among other women? I know I would.)

But wow, this has been a long four days. Both the worry and having to stay in my room if I wanted to stay cool.


Well, I would say "I have cool" except the job isn't 100% done...the new furnace is in, the new thermostat is wired up (more about that in a moment), the blower is working....but they still need to do the gas line hookup and all that so the furnace will work as a FURNACE.

(My house is a bit cooler now. But I'm waiting for the a/c to come back on; that's part of the new thermostat thing).

So anyway. I come rushing home at 12 minutes to 11 and find the guys out on my lawn, with the new furnace unboxed and various bits of ductwork laid out around it. They were ready to go. (I'm glad I used the restroom up on campus; right where they were working is very close to my bathroom and I have issues about micturating when other people can hear....)

It was Glenn, the older guy who had worked with me before (apparently he's the expert and is also the on-call guy on the weekends - so they have their experienced guys be the on-call people for emergencies. That's a good policy as far as the customers are concerned but not so happy for the dudes who wind up on-call). There were also two younger guys who did most of the moving and cutting and stuff under Glenn's supervision. 

They got started right away. It's actually surprising how fast everything moved. There was some consternation over finding the right breaker to shut off the power to the furnace (ten years ago, when I had the first bad old furnace guy, the one I fired, he had the same problem and declared the house "entirely miswired" and that I had to hire an electrician of his recommending. Yeah, no. That was actually the time that I first used these guys, after I fired him.) Eventually we found the right circuit; it wasn't clearly marked. (it is now)

Anyway, they got the new furnace in and the blower wired up.

And the new thermostat. When he walked in, Glenn handed me a box with one of those new programmable ones. (This one is even wi-fi compatible). I admit I'd resisted getting one because I have known people who had trouble with them, like the heat not coming on when they wanted it to. But oh well. (He said, "I'm giving you this as thanks for saving my folder of receipts" which may have been a nice way of doing it so I couldn't refuse it).

I will say it looks simple enough to program and it is kind of nice to be able to have the heating or a/c run less when I'm not home, and have the heat (for example) go down at night when I want a colder house anyway. I will say there's a five minute "you have to wait" period before the a/c comes back on after you mess with the thermostat, and I'm not totally on board with that, EXCEPT one of the young guys did note that it would help preserve the compressor on my a/c unit, by not setting it up  for short cycling. So okay, I guess. If I can go at least a couple more years before I need a new a/c unit I will be happy. And it may save me some money on my power bills. (I am NOT, however, going to hew to the "set it to 80 for the hours of 2 to 7 pm" like some power companies recommend. When I come home, hot and tired, from doing fieldwork or teaching in a hot building, I don't want to have to wait several hours to be able to cool myself off again.)

I don't know that I will set it up for wi-fi, to be able to program it remotely. Because my schedule is generally pretty consistent, (so I wouldn't need to change it on the fly) and also I admit I'm just paranoid enough of someone thinking they could prank me by hacking in and, I don't know, turning the heat off in the middle of winter).

It's gone from just under 87 to 84 in the house in about a half hour so I guess that's good. (That's the whole entire house that it's having to cool).

The two guys said they had to go grab lunch (I understand and used the opportunity to put together a salad myself) and they also needed to get a few bits and pieces to hook up the gas part of the furnace. And then they'll be done. And then I'll have a/c again, hopefully not to go away again this summer....

I will say ceiling fans make a huge difference; I could sit comfortably in my living room and write an exam (I wanted to be close by in case the guys had a question) under the fan, but here in my dining room where there is no fan it's kind of uncomfortable still.

I paid Glenn already, once most of the work had been done (and anyway, I trust these guys; they've been my "guys" for ten years and they are also the people about whom people say, "They're not the cheapest but you can count on them."). It cost exactly what he quoted me it would, which isn't always the case with workmen and stuff, I've found. (And I don't remember a time when it ever cost LESS than what I was quoted.)

1 comment:

purlewe said...

I have ours programmed for when we work. I have it go for 1.5 hrs in the morning (our usual overlap time of both of us getting out the door) and then 30 mins before we usually come home. In the summer it is harder to program as Sue is typically at home all day. She tends to set it on hold (for a comfy temp) for when she is home and run normally (warmer temp) when she leaves the house for grocery shopping or the library. We tend to use more energy in the summer b'c of this, but we are glad to be so lucky that we can run it while she is home.