I’m really dreading the family reunion that my family always has during the month of July.

Usually, it’s a whole lot of fun for me but I’m really having issues with the heat this year.

I just can’t take the hot temperatures this year for some reason. I am already thinking about how awful it’s going to be when we’re all sitting there in the burning hot sun, eating melted banana pudding and getting burned in the sun. I can’t even think about it for long before I start feeling a little bit stressed about it. I wish that my aunt who plans it actually thought about the fact that we are all burning hot out there in the sun. If she would just think about most of the other people in the family, then she would probably go ahead and rent a hall somewhere or something. We really need to switch the reunion to a cooler part of the year or else move our meeting place somewhere that has central air conditioning. I think that we should just rent a great big hall with central A/C and indoor bathrooms! I hate the way that we have to use portable bathrooms whenever we have a reunion. That’s the other awful thing about it that I hate besides the lack of air conditioning. I wish that my aunt would just get the idea that we all want to move somewhere besides her backyard. I guess she just wants to stick with tradition, but tradition makes me get very overheated. I think that somewhere with A/C would be a thousand times better.

Ductless mini split

Every year, we really love going to the county fair and it’s usually a lot of fun.

However, one thing that I don’t like about it is the fact that it’s always so hot outside during the week of the fair.

It’s always the same part of the year, and it’s when the temperature outside is usually in the nineties or even worse! I guess that’s just how it is during the summer around here, though. We always have really high temperatures and it’s just something that we have to deal with during the summer months. I have to run the central air conditioning nearly all the time during the summer because the indoor air quality gets to be terrible around here if you don’t have the A/C on. It’s so hot and humid around here that you wouldn’t believe it. Anyway, whenever we are at the fair there are very few areas that are cooled off by an air conditioning system. I really wish that more of the buildings had A/C or at least some fans or a window unit air conditioner or something like that but it’s mostly barns and other agricultural buildings. I guess that’s just how it goes at the fair. Thank goodness we aren’t showing animals there this year because we are supposed to have record breaking temperatures this summer. I am actually thinking about getting one of those little cooling devices to wear around my neck for when we go to the fair this year! I think that would be really helpful and it would definitely make me want to stay at the fair longer than normal!

 

HVAC equipment

We are building a house and we are finally to the point where we are ready to choose air registers and air vent covers.

It’s been a long, hard road for us to get this house ready to go, though.

We’ve been ready to move in for ages and it’s been taking forever for some reason. All of the contractors that we’ve been using have been taking forever to get all of the supplies in and get them installed. The worst one of all has been the HVAC contractor that we’ve been using. He hasn’t been that great at all, if you want to know the truth. He ordered a couple of things that were wrong from the beginning and we had to wait to get our ventilation ducts installed. That little debacle put us about three weeks behind and of course, that ended up throwing off everything else, too. We were told by several of our friends that this particular HVAC contractor was the best one in town and that he was definitely the one that we should hire to do the work on our house. Little did we know that he would end up having some personal issues and he would totally lose control of all of his heating and cooling jobs. That’s what happened with us. It’s been a really hard time throughout this whole build. The heating and cooling problem has been the worst thing to deal with by far. Now that we are finally done, it’s almost time to choose air registers and vent covers and I’m very excited about it!

 

Dial thermostat

I figured out that there was a problem when I noticed that the rest of the house wasn’t really cooling down the way that it should have been.

There are some cold spots in our house because there’s something wrong with the ductwork in the house. At least, that’s what I think the problem is anyway. I don’t know all that much about the heating and cooling industry and I certainly don’t know how to fix the HVAC system in my own house, that’s for sure. I started noticing that there were some cold spots in the house earlier this year whenever the weather started heating up. There were cold spots here and there throughout the house when I turned the air conditioning on for the first time this year. At first, I thought that I was imagining things with all the cold spots. Then I started to think that maybe the air conditioning just needed to run for a few days so that it could get revved up and ready to go for the summer. Of course, that’s not normally how things work with HVAC systems, though. I figured out that there was a problem when I noticed that the rest of the house wasn’t really cooling down the way that it should have been. The only cold places that remained consistently cold enough were the places where the cold spots were! That wasn’t what I wanted at all! I finally ended up calling the local heating and cooling business. I’m going to have them come out to the house to see what the issue is with all of the cold spots. Hopefully they will be able to fix them! We probably just need some new ductwork sealing or something like that.
Space heater

When we were much younger, my brother and I asked my father if we could have a treehouse.

Our father was a contractor, and he got excited at our request.

He picked out the perfect tree that was at the end of our property. It took him a couple weeks to create the blueprints. He had everything down on the plans, including a bathroom, electricity, and where the HVAC was going to be located. My mom reminded him that this was just a treehouse and not a home away from home, but he insisted this was necessary. What if we wanted to spend the weekend up there with our friends? It took almost a month for the treehouse to be completed. That tree house was quite a sight to behold. It had one and a half floors. There was a small bathroom and shower. The electricity had its own power connection to run the mini furnace and air conditioning unit. When I look back at it now, it was more like a tiny house on stilts than a treehouse. It’s funny, because when mom and dad passed away, my brother and I inherited the property and the treehouse was still standing. My boys played in it for quite some time, and then we sold the property. The treehouse stands and the new owners have since made some substantial repairs. They now rent the treehouse out to vacationers who want a weekend away in the wilderness, but don’t enjoy camping. I wish I had thought of this when we got too old to use the treehouse.

Heating equipment

My brother and I grew up on a farm.

They stored most of our vegetables over winter in an underground root cellar.

We wanted everything to be stored, so it would last as long as possible. My mother wanted to devote some of the root cellar to her canned foods, the ham, and other dried meats and vegetables. Dad considered her request, but he said it would be too damp in the root cellar for what she wanted to do. He was silent for the next couple of days as he thought over how he was going to give mom her storage area. We had no basement room, since it was full with the HVAC equipment. A week later, there was a large backhoe pulling into our yard. Dad had built another root cellar and had enough airflow to keep mom’s dried meats and vegetables from molding. He was going to make sure there was a small air vent that would supply enough heat and air conditioning, so the root cellar never got warmer or colder than sixty degrees. It would keep the humidity steady, and the meats and vegetables would last for a year or two. My dad was a smart man, and when it came to preserving foods, he was an expert. I never realized he was also an expert at heating and air conditioning until he built the second root cellar. I think it was watching him figure out the second root cellar that made me want to be a HVAC technician when I grew up. HVAC was more than just keeping people comfortable.

Heater maintenance

When my dad and mom split, dad gave mom the home and went in search of another home for himself. He said the only thing he cared about was that it needed excellent HVAC. He didn’t really have a very long list of necessities for himself or for his home. I laughed and offered to help him find a home. Although he and mom split, I wanted him to know I loved him as much as I did mom. Dad was working every day, and I was looking for a home whenever I got a chance. I was talking to a friend of mine who said her mom was getting remarried. She had a small two bedroom home she was going to sell. They had just put a new HVAC system into the house, and she said she was willing to lease it for sale if it helped my dad. When dad looked at the house, the first thing he did was inspect the HVAC system. The heating and air conditioning was brand new, but he was a bit worried about the ductwork. He said there was an air quality issue with the house. He told her he wanted the house, but he wanted to call the professional ductwork cleaners to come in, inspect, clean and sanitize the ductwork, before he moved in. My friend’s mom was more than willing to pay for the ductwork inspection, but dad said he would take care of it. After all, he owned the HVAC company that installed the HVAC equipment. He and the present owner both laughed.

 

Air conditioning repair

I’m not sure why, but I have never used the garage for our cars. It has become nothing more than storage for junk. I paid my kids $20 each if they would clean the garage out. After getting halfway through, they told me that if I wanted it it was going to cost me $30 bucks more, and that was for both of them. I thought I was being bilked, but then I realized how much junk there was. They already had the trash bin full, and they were working on a second one. The shelves were cleaned and put together neatly. They also had some items set to the side for me to decide if I wanted to keep them. They were both wearing jackets. Then I walked inside and I could feel the chill in the air. In order to use the garage, I was going to need to have HVAC installed. I walked into the bathroom and it was horrible. We also needed a ventilation system. My oldest son asked if I wanted the upstairs cleaned. The first thing I wanted to know was if I had to pay him extra. He told me that if he cleaned it well enough, and it was in great shape, he may forgo any payment, if he could have it for a home away from home. I smiled and nodded. He was almost eighteen, and I thought he needed his privacy. I called the HVAC company and inquired about heating and air conditioning plus a ventilation system for the entire garage. I told him I wanted to put an apartment in the upper part of the garage. It needed its own HVAC system.
Heating maintenance

For the last three years, I have been trying to figure out how to use my basement for more than just storage.

It’s a full-size basement that goes the entire length of my home.

There are two entrances and windows all along the front of the basement. Only the back area is underground. There is a small room that houses the HVAC system. It seems like a waste of space to only have leftover junk down there. My wife wanted her washer and dryer down there, so I put it in, but there is no heating or air conditioning. I talked to the HVAC company about putting the ductwork in the basement. He told me that since the ceilings are less than seven feet, it would take up a lot of space. Instead, he asked if I had considered putting a ductless HVAC system in the basement. We could have a unit at each end of the basement. With some nice carpeting, some furniture and window treatments, we could have a serviceable area for a bar, game room, or any number of other uses. My wife and I talked about the ductless HVAC and considered the added cost of energy. After all of our talking back and forth, we made the decision to have the ductless HVAC installed. It was one of the best decisions we had made, other than to get married. It took three days to order the HVAC system and have it installed. In the meantime, we ordered carpeting and drapes for the windows. We’re going to have a wonderful place to relax with our friends and the kids.

thermostat

One of the oddest gifts my wife and I received as a wedding present was a space heater.

• I couldn’t understand why anyone would give a space heater for a wedding present.

When we opened the gift, my uncle raised his glass to us and mouthed, ‘You ‘re welcome’. At the time I thought I should have known it was him because he had always been a bit odd. A couple of years later, we were having a blizzard in our area and we lost power. The space heater didn’t need electricity, and we could have heating until the lights came back on. My wife and I were silently thanking my uncle for giving us such an intuitive gift. Over the next ten years, we had the occasion to use the space heater more times than we could remember. Then one night we were getting ready to use the space heater and it wouldn’t light. We had used the space heater often over the past twelve years, and we knew it would quit working, eventually. The next day, we headed into town to look for a new space heater. We wanted a space heater that was just as good, if not better, than the old one. I took the information from the old space heater and showed it to the man at the home center. I asked him if he had that model? He said they hadn’t made that model in over five years. I wanted something that worked just as well, and he showed me different space heaters. The heater wasn’t what I wanted, but it worked just as well.

 

Commercial air conditioning system