Getting a grip on heating and cooling
Had another HVAC person out today to give me an estimate. He was very informative!
After discussing things with him… and thinking it over, I decided that… while we WILL replace the furnace and the coil that acts as the “inside half” of the air conditioner, we’d wait on replacing the outside unit. Instead, I’ll put some money into putting insulation up under the roof, where there is NONE ! This seems like a better investment.
I turned on the attic window-unit A/C early in the afternoon and left it on until bedtime. However, at about 1 AM, we woke up to heat and humidity again. So much for my theory about the attic A/C helping out !!
I then discovered that the ancient programmable thermostat that’s running the central air unit was not responding when I’d lower its temperature. It was in “Auto” status but didn’t seem to be turning on properly. This happened to us once or twice before but I thought perhaps it was something I did. I switched the unit to “ON” for about 10 minutes. Then, I turned the thermostat to about 65 degrees and switched it to “Auto”.
It didn’t shut off, so I creeped the temperature setting on up another 2 degrees. I figured it would turn off at some point… and I’d then have to play silly games to get it to run again. So, I ended up leaving it at 67 for about three hours (got some more sleep)… and then I pushed it back up another 4 degrees.
Crazy thermostat.
I posted on the yahoogroups “fixeruppers” mailing list, asking if anybody had any firm data on whether or not programmable thermostats actually save you money. I got back some info that suggested “yes”. But of course, a thermostat that WORKS would be better than one that DOESN’T, right?