Learning How to Sweat Again
Before you get too excited, let me start by saying that I have not reformed and started going to the gym or anything radical like that. What has happened is that the heat dome that has been hanging over the Southwestern states for over a week has extended its fringe over the mountains to our east and crept up our hillside ever so slightly. Let’s be clear, when you look at the heat maps that all the major news carriers have been showing in their weather-related reporting, I can see that we braved the worst of it with our drive down into Arizona, around the Grand Canyon and then across the old historic Route 66 path over the very worst portion of the heat dome that centered itself in the Mojave Desert that straddles western Arizona and eastern California. Our dirty white church van (which got returned to Enterprise Rent-a-Car today) had an outside thermometer, but we were never quite sure how much to trust it. Over the course of Friday afternoon that thermometer hung out between 117 and 124 degrees, which seemed somewhat unbelievable. It was so because that is much warmer than human being can generally survive and because our dirty white church van and its air conditioner (admittedly cranked up at the worst moments to 4 out of 5 on the dial) kept us pretty darn cool the whole way. We literally never felt put upon by that extreme heat dome and effectively thumbed our nose at it by zipping across the two states with narry a nod to the historic and excessive levels of heat. By the time we got home on Friday night, it had cooled down into the low 80s, so it never seemed like it was that hot. Then last night, we all went to a beach fire-pit S’mores cook-out cum movie night at Hotel Del on the Coronado ocean beach. It was in the low 70s when the sun set and we watched the movie (Hook) as the mercury dipped to the low 60s. It was all delightful and made us appreciate our climate here in San Diego.
You have been hearing me moan and groan about the cooler and wetter weather we have had all season long in the run-up through mid-June, but everything has changed now. We are back to normal July San Diego weather, which means higher 80s in the morning and mid-60s in the evening. But the price of being on the hilltop is that the afternoon sun can blast us from about 3pm to 7pm when the sun finally sinks into the Pacific Ocean. We have blackout shades inside and outside, but we only rarely use them because we love the views too much and it seems like declaring defeat to protect us for such a short part of the day. But that afternoon sun that so successfully feeds our PV solar panels so well can heat up the house and even overwhelm our air conditioning if we let it. We have two a/c units for the house, one at each end of our rather long single-story home. One serves the kitchen, dining room and guest suite and the other handles the large living room, the master bedroom and bath as well as the office. Our house is about 3,700 square feet, which is not small, but hardly large in an era of McMansions. I am guessing that the kitchen side of the house is perhaps 1,600 sf with the living room and MBR side of the house taking up the remaining 2,100 sf.
For some reason I cannot recall, after we bought the house a decade ago, we replaced the a/c unit that covers the kitchen side. I am not certain, but it looks like a 4-5 ton unit and that side of the house always feels cooler than the rest of the house. The MBR side has an old unit that seems to be a 3-ton unit and is showing its age (the house is 25 years old, so it may even be that old) and that side (the side we relax and sleep in!!!) is always warmer. It makes very little sense. Both sides of the house were expanded by about 250 sf by the previous owners and who knows if that older unit accounted for that. I know the new unit I installed had the benefit of that awareness. For three years now I have been holding our HVAC provider to their advertised reputation of being able to fix and repair ANY a/c unit. In fact, about two months ago I told the guy coming for the annual check-up that I wanted to keep it working. He didn’t seem to think I was crazy. But now its July and that heat dome is starting to rear its ugly head and I am rethinking my position. I keep feeling cool air coming out of the duct grates, but I went to bed last night with the two zones showing a temperature of 78 and 80 when the thermometers were set at 72, the unit struggling to cool down that afternoon heat-up.
I have a very low tolerance for overheating and having to sit in the kitchen to feel cool enough. Yesterday I was sitting in the living room and actually seeing my t-shirt collar get sweat-soaked. That’s not a good thing. I cranked up our Big Ass Fan in the living room and that air circulation certainly helped, so I pre-circulated the MBR Big Ass Fan to get that cooled down before bed. It worked well enough to keep it cool enough, with the help of the opened windows and doors, such that going to sleep was not painful. We kept the Big Ass Fan running while we slept and I guess we were tired enough to have it not bother us. But we also determined that it was time to get the important half of the house cooled down properly and that meant a new a/c unit at last. At a moment like this during a heat wave, no price is too high to correct an HVAC insufficiency, so I called our HVAC guys and set up an appointment for Thursday. I also spoke with Mike and Handy Brad, both of whom know lots more about HVAC than I do. I also recall getting hosed on a new furnace and then on a continuous hot water system by my HVAC guys. So, in addition to reaching out to them, I have two competitors coming over this week. One is Sears (Remember them? Do they still exist? We’ll see…) and the other is the team that installed my solar system and battery system. I will do what I generally dislike doing, which is run a horse race, not really to pick the cheapest bidder, but to keep the purveyor I might use as honest and competitive as I possibly can. What is normal course for Mike is out of the ordinary for me, but for some reason I feel the need to do this.
It all starts tomorrow and I am raring to go. Strangely enough, even though the heat remained today and peaked at 92 degrees today, staying on top of the cooling program as I have, it feels cooler than yesterday. But I am not deterred. I have been reminded that I do not want to risk being uncomfortable and that old unit needs to be replaced anyway, so I expect to have a new unit in place later this week one way or the other (assuming there are no supply chain issues (do those still exist?). Availability and timeliness might be a big advantage to one of the competitors.
This afternoon, I went out to help my granddaughter climb the climbing wall and ring the bell in order to add her name to list of kids who have rung the bell. She did a great job, but I haven’t done this for a while (last year?) and it took some untangling of the belay ropes, all done in the heat of the afternoon. I came in from my effort all sweaty, which may be the first time this year that I have really felt the heat that way. I thought I was learning how to seat again. It just served to stiffen my resolve about the a/c unit replacement as I sat in the kitchen waiting to cool down rather than go into the slightly warmer living room that awaits its improved cooling program.