HVAC Repair Tips for Homeowners

Sometimes I realize that i take drinking for granted.

Not that I’m a wild alcoholic who doesn’t know when enough is enough or anything like that.

I simply mean that drinking has become a normal part of my life, and I rarely stop to think about the dysfunction of it all. You see, I work for a small local craft brewery, and drinking is part of my job. I have to taste all of the brands we create, or else I won’t know how to promote them when I’m on the town. As such, I drink for free a lot. I always have access to free cans of beer in large quantities, and I rarely consider how abnormal this is. It’s not weird for me to have 48 cans of beer hanging out in my car… just like last night, when all 48 cans exploded. I genuinely forgot that I had the carbonated cans sitting in my back seat when I pulled up to my friend’s house and parked last night around 10pm. I didn’t consider the fact that it was excessively cold out that night, with an ambient temperature of 12 degrees and windchill of -20. I walked right into her toasty warm house and basked in the central heat that she had chugging along at 75 degrees. It was only when I walked back out into the freezing cold air outdoors that I realized I may have made a mistake. I suddenly remembered that it was subarctic temperatures outdoors and ran to my car. I arrived to find that every single free beer from my work had frozen in the cold air and exploded throughout the interior of my vehicle. I spent three hours scrubbing out the sticky mess in frigid cold conditions. So much for the perks of my job.

heater maintenance

I always hear people talking about how they wish they could travel more freely in their lives.

I totally understand where they’re coming from – it’s awesome to take a break from life and go off on an adventure to see some sights – but I also don’t think they’re very realistic about what traveling entails.

As someone who travels often for work, I can tell you that it’s not all that it’s chalked up to be. Most likely, you won’t be flying first class. You won’t be staying in some beachfront villa with a private beach. And it’s unlikely that your photo gallery is filled with insta-perfect destination photos unless you devote endless hours to curating the perfect picture. In my experience, traveling has been a jarring and unpleasant experience, for the most part. In the past two days, for example, I’ve existed across multiple climates and air temperatures. I started in the hot and humid sub-tropical south only 48 hours ago. The temperature was balmy and warm, and there was a stillness to the air. A day later, the temperature had dropped about 40 degrees in my new location. There was a lot of wind and cold moisture on the ground adding an extra chill to the air, and we were nervously increasing the indoor air temperature degree by degree. Flash forward to today; we’ve arrived at our final destination and the outdoor high is -14 degrees. We’ve put on all our heavy winter clothes and tried every trick in the book to warm up on this trip, but nothing can compare to simply existing in a moderately warm environment and staying there.

Air purification help

I am being honest when I say that I grew up in poverty and have developed a lot of classist beliefs from my early years.

I do not find wealth to be attractive or something to envy; instead I think that it is disgusting and counterproductive to society.

When I meet someone and they reveal a rich family or lack of student debt, I have a tendency to back away quickly. Yes, my opinions are definitely pretty hard-lined. That being said, I recently had one of the most wonderful experiences with a fantastically wealthy man who I met through my work. He invited me over to discuss further business ventures together, and I quickly fell in love with his lifestyle. More specifically, I quickly fell in love with his central heating and cooling system that ran his lifestyle at home. When I first walked into his home, I couldn’t help but notice that the air felt cleaner and more consistent than other places. I normally feel a lot of disturbing drafts and cold air pockets when I walk around in forced air heating and cooling systems, but somehow there was a calm and constant quality to the air in his house unlike anything I’ve felt before. I spent an hour or so playing it cool and pretending that I wasn’t distracted by the high quality heat that surrounded my entire body, but eventually I had to ask how his indoor air felt so amazing. He graciously told me that he recently had his central heating system replaced with radiant heated flooring and shrugged it off like it didn’t matter. Meanwhile, I went home cursing myself for my failures that prevented me from becoming rich enough for radiant heated floors.

Geo heat pump

My adult life has been spent in bargain vehicles.

I’ve always owned small sedans that I got for a deal from a geriatric seller or a family friend.

I’ve never worried about car payments or filling up a large gas tank, but I also never had a very reliable travel option. That being said, I can now praise myself for always opting to get the smallest transportation possible after having quite a difficult trip in a “luxury” travel van. You see, my boyfriend was hired to deliver some major equipment to Montreal for his colleague this week, and I decided to go ahead and join in the trip. For the past 4 days I’ve been cruising along, riding shotgun in this massive commercial van supposedly equipped with high tech amenities. However, the one area in which the vehicle is lacking. The heat has been awful. There is plenty of hot air that comes flowing out of the defrost setting, but when it comes to providing warmth to your feet and body, the air temperature is strangely uneven. Since the van is huge, this low quality heat doesn’t do enough to raise the indoor air temperature consistently. One second we’re toasty warm, and two moments later everyone is shivering in their seats. So far we’ve managed to get by with extra blankets, but as we drive further into the northern tundra this air is becoming colder and colder. We’re rapidly running out of layers to put on for extra heat, and there’s no sign of the onboard HVAC system improving. At this point I’m genuinely worried that we aren’t going to make it back home in this freezing cold metal box.

 

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