It’s been an undoubtedly interesting few years.

Of course, I imagine that has been the case for all the people in business.

The pandemic, ensuing financial problems and now inflation has kept my supplier practices evolving. But I think I’m lucky that I work for a business that is of a size that can stay nimble for changes. That was never more the case than when we were sent house to work from the central air conditioning of our homes. I wasn’t so sure that I’d see the inside of my office and enjoy the commercial HVAC of that building again. I just didn’t think if I would survive or if the supplier would be able to hang on. It was absolutely all hands on deck that summer of 2020. For me, I had to serve purchasers. And I couldn’t always do that from the air conditioning comfort of an online meeting hundreds of miles away. I needed to be careful for sure but I also needed to get to our purchasers. Even though airlines kept strict mask mandates and HEPA filters, the supplier said no flying. So those in my position just packed up the car, put the air conditioning on high and hit the long, hot interstate. That’s the only method of travel we had open to us at the time. It worked out though because our supplier was nimble enough to get to our purchasers and we even gained market share during the worst of the global health crisis. At the end of each morning that summer, I always knew just where to find the most consistent lodging. It was always the mid tier hotels off the interstate that had the ancient university wall air conditioning units.

central heating

Learning how to deal with your limitations is just as important as maximizing your strengths.

That’s true in just about every facet of life, and but it’s not always a straight-forward thing to do, and it’s particularly hard to see, accept and adapt to your limitations if you can’t see them, but clearly, when it came to the HVAC unit, I wasn’t paying attention to the reality of my limitations.

I’ve been interested in machines since I was little. I’d take broken stuff and slip out of the central air conditioning to the basement where I had a sort of workbench. There, I would carefully dismantle the broken item in order to understand how it went together. I followed that passion and am now working as an engineer, but while I have a lot of training and fantastic mechanical understanding, I have my limitations. For one, I’m not a trained, licensed and certified HVAC professional and I think this. But when I came home to find a heat pump running but no cooling coming from the air ducts, I decided to solve the problem. And that’s the way I come at things, yet, I also think that you simply can’t solve problems without the correct tools. I absolutely didn’t have the correct training or actual tools to diagnose and repair the residential HVAC. Still, I persisted until I ended up shutting down the entire HVAC unit. That’s when I finally called the HVAC supplier for assistance. And that’s when I found out that my messing around had voided the warranty on my HVAC equipment.

central air conditioning

She even went so far to have a guy come out and winterize the house for me

It’s February and I’m not for sure that I’m going to make to spring. Where I come from, February is the when the first indicator of spring happens. I come from the south and we see pollen dusting our cars and stuff outside during February. That was always when my dad would make the call to the HVAC company. The heat pump would have been pretty dormant all winter. So dad always made sure that we got a an air conditioning tune up before we needed a bunch of air conditioning. I used to complain so much about the heat and humidity we had to deal with. Now, I can’t believe I ever opened my mouth about the weather where I come from. I’m just trying to survive the winter up here without losing my mind. I can’t go anywhere. I go from the gas furnace heating of my house to the commercial HVAC of the office and that’s it. I don’t want to be exposed to the cold any longer than that. Shoot, I don’t even like opening the door when I order a pizza. And I have a space heater stashed underneath my desk so I don’t freeze inside the commercial HVAC at my desk. Thankfully, I bought a house that had a new gas furnace. This was all because of my awesome realtor who made sure that new residential HVAC was happening. She even went so far to have a guy come out and winterize the house for me. So while I’m hating this kind of winter, at least the new gas furnace keeps me pretty toasty inside my house.

hot water boiler

It seems as though I could do better about paying attention to the heating and cooling in my house.

• Well really, it’s more than cooling than it is the heating.

In fact, I think I’ve heard the heat pump come on for heating maybe a half dozen times all winter. Now that it’s late February, I don’t imagine I’ll hear the heat pump come on for heating again. In this region, spring comes early and the temperatures rise. For my husband, it’s a sad time because he loves the mild temperatures in the winter. He’s from up north and is accustomed to winters that require a gas furnace to survive. When he moved down here, he fell in love with the weather eight months of the year. But he is chased inside all day during the summer months. That’s not the case for me. While it can wear me down a bit, I love being outside in the garden during the summer. Yet, I also have to be far more careful about gardening around the HVAC equipment alongside the house. I nearly choked out the heat pump last summer. I think I was getting a bit too hot as I was not paying close attention to what I was doing. Somehow, it seemed like the right idea to throw the tarp I had to toss stuff on as I was weeding the flower beds out there. I just wanted it to dry off in the sun while I went in for lunch. I didn’t even think about the air flow restriction this would cause. Fortunately, my husband saw what I was doing and stopped me before I completely choked out the HVAC equipment.

smart hvac

I always thought I was sort of bulletproof until it was proven that I wasn’t.

I went from over confident to completely humbled due to a devastating injury due to a car accident. One moment I was adjusting the air conditioning in my car on a leisurely drive down the interstate and the next, I was waking up in a hospital. And talk about a lot of air conditioning, I remember just being freezing in the hospital room. I asked if they could turn down the thermostat and they just brought me blankets. Apparently, they keep the cooling at a maximum to limit the spread of bacteria and virus. That’s good enough for me because once I got home, my thermostat was actually looking after me. I live alone so I had to rely on friends and family to help me out getting to the doctor or to physical therapy. For months, I didn’t even have the ability to cook my own food. It was a long recovery process. But the smart thermostat I had installed by the HVAC professionals proved to be a vital addition to my house. At least I didn’t need help with the thermostat setting. During my recovery, I was in bed a lot and experienced every changing sensitivity to temperature. Thanks to the app on my phone, I could remotely change the thermostat setting from bed or the couch. It sounds like such a small detail but that really was something that I celebrated. It might not have been much but looking after my own heating and cooling needs was just this small piece of independence that I clung to.

air conditioning provider

We call it the lodge because that’s what my dad called it.

And he was the one who helped his grandfather built it.

So maybe it was my great grandfather who came up with calling it the lodge. All the men in my family were hunters for generations. and so having a place that you could go hunting was really super important to the men in my family. When I was a kid, my dad would take me up there for deer hunting. It was great to be outside of the central air conditioning of our house and out in nature. However, I just wasn’t all that into the idea of killing such a beautiful animal. Of course, my dad explained to me that I eat something that was killed almost every night. Death was part of our reality and that goes with hunting. Still, I left the air conditioning of home less and less the older I became. When dad died, I inherited the lodge and initially thought I would just sell it. However, having 30 acres of pristine land really gave me pause for thought. Additionally, I had children of my own who I wanted to experience the lodge with. But the lodge needed a whole lot of renovations to make that happen. We started by adding residential HVAC to that space. The HVAC professionals installed three ductless heat pumps in that lodge. It’s a big structure and I’m impressed with how well the ductless heat pumps provide the heating and cooling we need. Once we updated the residential HVAC, we turned our attention to other modern conveniences like wi-fi and updated kitchen appliances. Now the lodge is somewhere my whole family blows to get together to celebrate being in nature.

furnace/heater

It’s just the most decadent time for me. To others, it probably seems like another ordinary, boring family vacation. But for me, it’s the height of indulging my appetites. This is not something that I do very often. I’ve found that structure and discipline win the day when it comes to achieving what I want to achieve. I spend a lot of tense, stressful hours inside the zone controlled HVAC of the office. I have found that getting plenty of exercise, healthy food and good rest is essential to being my best at what I do. And I’m not really interested in anything but my best when I’m inside the commercial HVAC of my office. I’m different when I’m not working as I like to relax and just enjoy my off hours. However, that doesn’t allow me to just indulge the way I might want to. That goes for the air conditioning setting and my strict bedtime. But breaking the rules is what vacation is all about for me. Again, this might be lame to other people but ordering anything I want off of a menu for 2 weeks straight is a little slice of heaven. It’s also wonderful to be able to stay in a vacation rental instead of a hotel room. I like staying in vacation rentals because of the residential HVAC. The last place we stayed even had zone controlled HVAC like we do in the office. My wife and I had a thermostat in the master bedroom all our own. I can promise you that I cranked that cooling the whole time I was on vacation. That’s so not in character for me when I’m at home as the thermostat setting is not negotiable. That’s so we don’t rack up huge heating and cooling costs. I just love vacation.

ductwork cleaning

It won’t be long before we have the ductwork cleaning done for the third time in a row.

We are now making ductwork cleaning a yearly thing to coincide with spring cleaning.

Then, once all that is done, the air conditioning tune up takes place and we’re ready to deal with summer. So as we are nearing the end of winter, I will be placing the call to the HVAC company to do the ductwork cleaning. This is the final step in our spring cleaning. I mean, we take this yearly chore seriously. My husband and I actually take a Thursday and Friday off so we can spend the better part of a four day weekend scouring our home. It really isn’t as bad as it seems. We keep a fairly tidy house anyway. But we just never seem to have the time to move furniture and get a deep clean on the house. So that’s why we make this an annual event. Actually, we kind of enjoy it. However three years ago, we were having a glass of wine all happy with our spring cleaning effort. Then, my husband and I witnessed this sort of dust ball floating down from the HVAC air duct. It blew our minds and that’s when we called the HVAC company for our first ductwork cleaning followed by a ductwork resealing. That’s how ductwork cleaning became the capper on the spring cleaning event. So we’ll start planning all of that up soon. It’s great to go into the summer with a sealed up house and the air conditioning on knowing that everything is super clean.

furnace

I don’t think I ever expected the residential HVAC that we inherited to last this long.

It’s remarkable really because we negotiated a much better price on this house because of the HVAC equipment. The previous owner was not at all interested in any sort of big cost outlay to sell this place. He just wanted out. Thankfully, we had a skilled realtor who got thousands of dollars chopped off the price of the house thanks to the position of the seller. We were so convinced that we’d need to replace the HVAC equipment sooner rather than later, that we put some money away. Well, that savings has grown and grown over the 15 years we’ve enjoyed quality heating and air from that old heat pump. Of course, getting the sort of consistent, seasonal HVAC maintenance that it needed sure helped. That old residential HVAC just kept on going and going. But finally, we noticed late last summer that it was not keeping up with air conditioning demand the way it once did. It seemed like the heat pump was running a lot. That was confirmed by the utility bill and the HVAC technician. It was time to finally tap those savings and upgrade the heating and cooling equipment. With all the saving that had accrued, we were able to go with the very latest in residential HVAC. And of course, we went with all the cool HVAC technology like a smart thermostat and zone controlled HVAC. As much as I am thrilled with the amazing quality heating and air of the new HVAC unit, I still have to tip my cap to that old heat pump.

zone control

I found out early on that I liked working from the central air conditioning of my house. And I was shocked by that realization. When I started hearing the rumors that we’d be sent home from the zone controlled HVAC comfort of our offices, I was horrified. In fact, I went to bosses and supervisors pleading my case to remain inside the commercial HVAC of the office as part of the skeleton crew. I was rebuffed in my request and found myself turning the guest room into what I thought was a temporary office. That’s not how it has turned out at all. That home office became very permanent once I had the ductless heat pump installed. My home office is at the end of the house, exposed to sunlight all day and exposed on three sides. It’s warm in there even with the air conditioning on. So when I took the company up on its offer to stay remote, I took it. They really didn’t even have to give me the bonus incentive. But I was happy to take it. I put it right toward having the HVAC professionals come out and install a ductless heat pump in my now permanent office. It works amazing well and is super efficient. I can actually turn down the main thermostat during the peak heating of the day and save on air conditioning costs. That’s how efficiently the ductless heat pump provides cooling to my office. I love the freedom that working from home has given me. I start really, really early so I have the freedom to do other things at times during the day. As long as I get my work done, appear for online meetings and meet expectations, the rest of my day is mine.

air quality