Once I sort of understood the monster I was going to be dealing with, I started to learn how best to manage my efforts.
When you live this far south, the Summer is the time of year that we could all do without down here. Indeed, the heat and humidity level truly is monstrous. But it’s much more manageable now that I have some experience under my belt. That first Summer 7 years ago was almost otherworldly. Having spent my entire life way, way up north, I didn’t even know it could get this kind of hot. I wasn’t keen to travel so I hadn’t ever experienced the need for air conditioning the way I did that first Summer. But essentially, that’s all I did all Summer. I went from the central air conditioning of our new home to the office. There, I stayed put inside the zone controlled HVAC all day. I even had a thermostat inside my office walls so I jammed on the cooling in the office as well. Then, it was all I could do to drive home with the air conditioning blasting in the car and then right back into residential HVAC. I learned a couple of things that first Summer. First, I hated being stuck inside the air conditioning all the time. And second, I had to get a handle on the cooling costs or just wreck the budget. So gradually, I changed a bit with each successive Summer heat season. But this Summer, I’m really going for it when it comes to saving on the cooling costs. I had the HVAC technician install a smart thermostat when he was here in March to do the air conditioning tune up. I’m going to turn all the air conditioning over to this new HVAC technology and just sit back and save money.