It’s so crystal clear in my mind the picture of the house in the rearview mirror as I pulled away for the last time.

And I was so glad that I wasn’t sad but felt like we were making the right move instead.

I’m normally all about second guessing when it comes to big decisions. But the fact that it was early fall and we had started a HVAC Heating in the car that day was enough to remind me how much I hate winter. I was just done with all the cold and the snow. It was time to trade a gas furnace for a heat pump. I was so ready to be done with all those high heating costs. Now down here, the summer heat sort of balances that out a bit. But I’d much rather conserve on HVAC cooling than freeze in the sort of winter that we just left. Sure, it was tough leaving family and good friends. Fortunately for my wife and I, we don’t have children that we had to relocate and put in new schools. So when I got a job offer to join a regional office down south, I immediately went to my wife about it. She was all in and started looking to see if she could transfer to the commercial HVAC of a regional office herself. We found a great house with great residential HVAC and it does not come with a gas furnace. It’s been a few years now and we absolutely love where we live. Again, the summer can be tough but I’d much rather manage summer heat with HVAC cooling than deal with a gas furnace and snow and ice.

 

air conditioner installation

Initially, I tried to go online to figure out just what we wanted when it came to our next residential HVAC.

It was clear that this was something that needed an HVAC professional to help guide me to the right HVAC unit.

It was only a few weeks before we met with the HVAC contractor that our HVAC technician had informed us our heat pump was dying. This wasn’t a big surprise since the HVAC equipment was 28 years old. I felt so fortunate to have gotten that much quality heating and air out of what really was sort of a base line residential HVAC unit. But with all the HVAC maintenance that HVAC unit has gotten over the years, it just kept working. After the HVAC technician informed us that it was time to make a plan to replace the HPAC unit, that’s what I went online. Of course, that was a waste of time as there was just way too much information on the internet for me to really even understand. So thankfully the HVAC contractor got us what we needed. That HVAC professional actually came to our house, did an inspection and then sat down to listen to our heating and cooling needs. We were able to find the perfect blend of HVAC technology and efficiency. These days I’m still just blown away by how impressive this new HVAC unit really is. We live where the summer heat is oppressive and this summer was a dream with perfect HVAC cooling. I’m also loving how much money the new residential HVAC is saving us on utility costs!

 

heating and cooling equipment

So it seems to me that I may have stumbled on the perfect formula for getting me to workout.

• All it took was having the equipment and quality heating and air in my basement to actually keep me motivated.

I just wish I had realized that a long time ago. When you’re married to a gym rat, a man can feel already sort of behind when it comes to being in shape. My wife was a student athlete and has maintained her fitness for the last couple of decades. I met her in the commercial HVAC of our offices. We didn’t work for the same company but we occupied the same building. However, we quickly noticed that we both brought our lunch and neither of us wanted to eat inside the commercial HVAC of our respective offices. So we ate in the courtyard any day it was nice enough to be outside. This allowed us to get to know each other and from there we fell in love. Since we married, I’ve been trying to keep up with her to some degree when it comes to working out. But I’m not really a gym sort of guy. However once the pandemic hit, we both had to give up our gym memberships. So we invested in a home gym. It was pretty easy to put together in our basement. And I have HVAC company come out to install a ductless heat pump in our new home gym in the basement. It’s the perfect recipe for me wanting to work out. Even my wife is noticed my progress as of late.
link provided

Finally, the heat is off.

• Our weather is now at that point to where we all remember why we live here.

For the next nearly 8 months, we are in for the most delightful weather now that the air conditioning demand is nearly done. For us, June through September comes with lots of heat and humidity. That said, we do our best to be careful with how much air conditioning we use. There are plenty of folks I know who pushed the thermostat super low and just stay inside the air conditioning all of those four months. This seems like a complete waste of where we live. Sure, it’s hot and humid and sometimes feels overwhelming. You for sure don’t want to be outside exerting after lunch time as that can be dangerous due to the level of heat. But too much air conditioning inside the house can also make it feel even more oppressive outside. We do our best to find a middle ground when it comes to the thermostat setting. During the day, we try to keep the thermostat in the low 80s when it’s near a hundred outside. We move it down a bit into the mid to lower 70s for a cooling evening. We try to remember that our grandparents lived much of their lives very close to where we are right now without any kind of residential HVAC. So it’s definitely doable to find a middle ground between staying stuck inside too much HVAC cooling and not enough. I think we do a pretty good job and we’re not forking over nearly a car payment just for air conditioning.

Programmable thermostat

I’m really grateful that the closest HVAC company makes a point of getting out to me.

That’s more than an hour round trip for them.

I live far enough out that there are times where even a four wheel drive vehicle has a hard time getting to me. Yet every fall, those HVAC professionals come out to do the HVAC maintenance on my gas furnace. They don’t seem to mind the trip at all and I certainly appreciate their attitude. I always know I’m in good hands with those HVAC technicians. I’ve lived way out here since I built this place when I got out of college. This is the second gas furnace I’ve had in this house. Due to the great work of my HVAC professionals and all that HVAC maintenance, I’ve never suffered any sort of downtime. That doesn’t mean I haven’t gone a few days without HVAC heating. When there is a particularly tough storm, the power and gas could be off for a while. So I’ve always had to back up my gas furnace. The wood stove I use for heating in the winter is original as I had it built just for this place. That heating method sure has come in handy when I needed it. The price of heating being so expensive, I even use the wood stove more now as a supplemental heating source. It’s certainly worth effort when it comes to rounding up all the firewood it takes to get through a winter. But more than anything, I’m so thankful to have heating no matter if the gas furnace is working or not.

 

climate control

I’m having a tougher and tougher time just living in my community as well as this country.

It’s getting to the point that it all seems just so unrecognizable.

For sure, this must sound like I’m whining. That’s obviously the way it’s feeling these days. Just going for a walk the other night to see the sunset, I came upon a horrifying sight. I was walking past my neighbors and he was outside picking up pieces of his HVAC equipment. Normally I just wave and move on. But this time I was curious as to what he was doing so I walked on over. I’m an engineer and that makes me pretty curious by nature. And those who know me are always asking me to help figure things out. And that’s what my neighbor wanted me to do as he was trying to come to terms with the fact that is HVAC equipment had just been destroyed. I was in disbelief myself. Why would somebody do that? Turns out, the thieves were after nothing but a handful of copper fittings deep inside the HVAC unit outside the house. And yet, they destroyed thousands of dollars worth of HVAC equipment for those copper fittings. And they did it in the wee hours of the morning. Once I got back from my walk, I started looking online for ways to prevent that from happening for my HVAC equipment. Looks like I’m going to have to order a cage that fits over the HVAC cabinet and bolts to the concrete underneath. Again, I’m having a real hard time recognizing the country on living it.

 

a/c installation

All I could think about was the fact that I had finally found something I could afford.

And after years of living with poor quality heating and air in an apartment, I was eager to be a homeowner.

That’s why I missed a few details perhaps. Still, getting out of the poor residential HVAC of an apartment was so urgent did I was super ready to buy. The house itself was sort of small and it was going to take plenty of renovating. The size didn’t really matter to me as it’s just me and my girlfriend. So for the space, it worked out just fine. But the condition of the house was another matter. He needed so many upgrades. However it was structurally in great shape. I wasn’t thrilled with the HVAC. I knew that it had to be replaced. That much was obvious by simply looking at it. But until the HVAC contractor came out to do the inspection, I had no idea about the ductwork. Turns out, the ductwork was shot. Thank goodness for a home inspection from an HVAC professional. Thankfully, we are able to pivot quickly to another form of residential HVAC. We chose to go with a ductless multi split system four hour heating and cooling needs. I have three ductless heat pumps that are placed strategically around the house. I’ve been so pleased with the results. The ductless heat pumps are terrific and super efficient as well. Plus, I love the fact that I can set them independently of one another or group them together. This option allows us to have a sort of zone controlled HVAC effect in our new little nest. Sure beats the poor residential HVAC of those apartments.

HVAC brands

There was just something about building our own house that my wife and I were just super intrigued about.

But we were also afraid of taking on such a massive and detail heavy projects. We had heard all sorts of horror stories about building a house. Almost everyone inside the commercial HVAC of my office had some horrible story to relay. When it came time to upgrade the HVAC equipment and sell our family home, there was a decision that had to be made. There were plenty of late nights inside the air conditioning of our home going over all of our options. However, the tipping point was when we downloaded a program that helps you design your own home. From there we were all in. I think the fact that we spent a couple of years considering and planning for the home we wanted to build was key. It allowed us to treat everything as essential. And this goes double when it comes to heating and cooling in our new place. We interviewed many HVAC contractors until we found just the right HVAC professional. The biggest reason we did that was so the HVAC equipment we had chosen was installed properly. We went with a geothermal heat pump and that has to be precisely installed or you don’t get the full benefit. So we had to make sure that we had a real HVAC professional with experience. Turns out that we found just the right HVAC contractor for the job. Not only was the geothermal heat pump installed just right, he was so incredibly thorough when it came to the entire process.

Air quality systems

It took us just about 18 months to save up for this type of air purifier.

• It wasn’t cheap to have a whole home air purification system installed by the HVAC professionals.

However, it was worth every penny. My wife and I learned all about the need for good indoor air quality once the pandemic arrived. My wife has a health issue that puts her at high risk of having serious illness due to the covid virus. So from the very beginning, she and I were staying inside the air conditioning of our home almost all the time. I understand that there are so many other people who had it far tougher than we did. And those people are the ones that I think of often now that we are starting to live this new normal. But prior to the pandemic, I really didn’t have a concept of how important indoor air quality really is. In most of our homes, there are so many things that are synthetic. From the carpet to the furniture, synthetics are leaching out into the air that we breathe. Combine that with pet dander and pollen from outside and the respiratory system is under near constant attack. Of course, this drags down the immune response. And we are living in a day and age where we have to have a strong immune system. We switched to a HEPA filter first while we were saving for the air purifier. But now that we have the whole home air purification system, our house has been transformed. We easily have the best indoor air quality we could ever ask for.

hvac tune-up