I wub AC
So there's only one real shortcoming of the house we're in: It doesn't have central HVAC. And I'm not even sure anymore that's such a problem.
The house, like many residential dwellings in the Northeast, is heated by forced hot water by natural gas. It's efficient, and it's "quality" heat. The only downside is that there's no cooling. We're fortunate in that we live in a well-ventilated house with lots of natural shading thanks to the trees, so the house is a lot cooler than the last place we lived.
About a year ago, some contractor bid a central HVAC conversion job at about 8 grand. The work wouldn't be so bad on the first floor, since we have a full basement and would be able to accommodate vents in the floors pretty easily, but the two bedrooms and bathroom upstairs would be a pain in the ass -- we'd have to wall off one of two entrances to the family room then stick vents in the closets of both bedrooms, plus god-knows-what-else for the bathroom and hallway. This past week I've discovered that we may not need it after all.
Last year we had two window-based AC units -- small, 5600 BTU ones -- in the two upstairs bedrooms. Took the edge off at night, where Emme slept most of the time since we didn't have another for her own bedroom, which is downstairs. These two were not enough to cool the house, and believe me, I tried.
After a conversation that ended with Emme dramatically telling her grandmother, "My bedroom doesn't get cool. EVER," Grandma took pity on the girl and bought her an AC, which I installed earlier this summer. We've used it a few times, but this past weekend we ran into a patch of just foul, horrible summer weather.
The heat hasn't been so bad, but we've had oppressive humidity. New England can be bad in late July and throughout August to begin with, but these past few days have been vicious -- this is Floridian weather. Constant, sopping humidity (the dew point rarely goes below 70 degrees) combined with wet, soaking thunderstorms practically every day. The air has the consistency of chowder. It's just revolting.
Add to that poor Bob -- he's getting over pneumonia. This is the third time he's had it, and the second time in a year. When he gets a respiratory infection, he has a lot of trouble shaking it. I'm hoping it's something he gets over as he gets older.
Bonnie, sweating and bedraggled, looked at me on Saturday and said, "Can we do anything about this?"
Despite my experience with the two ACs last year, I decided on a lark to shut all the windows and crank up the AC's in all three rooms full-blast. Then I went to get the van's brakes fixed, but I wasn't optimistic -- those three ACs are really designed for single-room cooling only.
I expected that I'd need at least one more unit, and something probably fairly big, like a 12,000 BTU model, to take the edge off the rest of the house. Lo and behold: When I came back that afternoon, it was 74 degrees inside, about ten degrees lower than the outside temp and a hell of a lot drier.
There's this one spot in the living room, on the sofa, where you can feel the air from the AC in Emme's room start to mix with the air flowing down from the upstairs ACs. This house has some really great circulation.
By Sunday, I also noticed that Bob's cough -- as well as some mild sniffling and sneezing the rest of us had been suffering with -- had started to dry out. Apparently there's some mix of humidity, mold and pollen in the air that is killing us all, and once we sealed up the house, the problem was resolved.
Last night we caught something of a respite from the oppressive weather, so I turned off the ACs and opened a few windows. We all felt like shit come this morning, and it's worse than ever today. So on go the ACs, down go the windows. Within about two hours, we're all feeling okay again.
Once September rolls around I'll take stock of the electric bills and try to gauge how energy-efficient this is -- to see if it'd even be worth considering the 8 grand or so we'll lose switching to central, for the quality of air we'd get. But one thing is for sure -- that third AC did the trick.
Thanks, Grandma!