Our house was built in 1922. Fabulous, right?!?! It has original floors, crown molding and even french doors in the living room. It also has it's original hand blown, thin as tissue paper (and about as holy) windows. As soon as we moved in, I went about preparing to replace all the windows in the house. I quickly learned we had 32 windows and very old specialty casing around said windows, which makes replacing them EXPENSIVE...to the tune of around $10,000. So we did NOT replace our windows.
Skip ahead to our first winter in our antique house. Picture it Sicily 1922....wait no that's a different story. It's February 2010 it has been in the teens for a record 10 days in Memphis and in our house we have not been able to get above 60 degrees. We spend our nights huddled in the living room with a roaring fire and two space heaters. During the weekend we walk to mall just to be somewhere that is warm. Are you sad for us yet? I am. We tell ourselves this too shall pass and chalk the freezing house up to the obvious window problem.
Fast forward one year. It is January 12, 2011. The temp is 11. Inside 57. Mary is unpleasant. I know why it's cold. I choose to live in a charming midtown bungalow with 90 yr old windows, I did this to myself I cannot complain. And yet I do, I am so sad. I am an adult, with a job....why am I shivering in my house? So I call the heater man. I tell him my sad story, in my shakiest cold voice, and throw in the fact I have an adorable angel baby who can barely play for her frostbitten fingers. He promises to be at my door first thing in the morning.
Friday morning up at 6 so I can be ready for the man, 7 am...8am....9am....10am....11am.....11:45 he knocks on the door (what part f that was first thing?) Oh well, he's here. We head downstairs. He praises me on our new unit, that is nice and warm AND that I had changed the air filter!! He muses over why in the world ot wouldn't be keeping our moderate house warm. He decides to take a look inside at something called the "heat strips." Sure I say, the heat strips. He opens Tricia the Trane HVAC up and guess what...she has NOOOOOO heat strips. They are not broken, or used up no no my friends, they have never been installed. He is aghast! Having a unit with no heat strips is like having a car with no radio ever installed (this is what he tells me). You just don't see it. Now from here this story gets much longer and way more technical. I do not want to take you through that or you will stop reading my blog. So here is the summary in 100 words or leass:
No heat strips=when the temp outside is below 32 our heater no longer produces warm air (IRONIC)
They skipped installing them b/c there was not enough wire in the basement to plug into.
There is not enough wire b/c our house is 100yrs old
We will now be hiring an electitian to put in more wire (cha-ching)
We will be installing heat strips.
Mary will be warm=priceless.
Got it? Ah, homeowning!
No comments:
Post a Comment