I really like to get after the house and just scrub it down top to bottom each spring. Our house is kept clean all year but there is something about a spring cleaning that I really like. And after the past year of being stuck inside the house and the air conditioning due to the pandemic, I was even more eager to get to the cleaning. However this year, I added something to the mix that I had been meaning to for a long time. We’ve been in this house for just over 10 years. When we bought the house, it came with brand new HVAC equipment per our negotiations with the former owner. He didn’t exactly go top end with the heating and cooling equipment but it’s not bad either. The SEER rating is above average so it’s pretty efficient and that helps hold down the HVAC cooling costs. In our region, it’s the air conditioning that is the main utility cost regarding HVAC. And we’ve had the HVAC equipment under an HVAC service plan since we moved in as well. So, it’s been reliable for heating and cooling this past decade. But, I realized that I had never had the ductwork cleaning done. So after the year we just had, it seemed like perfect timing to get the ductwork cleaning done this year. And I was very pleased with the results. There wasn’t a big mess and the crew was great. Plus they did the ductwork sealing at the end which they told me will greatly enhance the HVAC efficiency. This is the cleanest the house has ever felt.

Heating and cooling equipment

And only a few times did I need a space heater during the winter

Well, I just made it official. I’m now working remotely full time going forward. This was a change that I had considered for some time. But the fact that I just did it for over a year was the tipping point for me. Our offices with the outstanding heating and cooling comfort are open again. All of the employees were welcomed back. And it took exactly a half day for me to realize that the office environment was no longer for me. I had thought through this a hundred times ever since the company started incentivizing remotely working out of the office. But, I just never pulled the trigger. I think that was out of fear of change more than anything else. I mean sure, I love the zone controlled HVAC in the office. And I love that someone else is paying the heating and cooling bills while I’m working. But honestly, there just isn’t that much else I’ll miss at the office. Besides, I’ll still have to come in for big meetings and stuff like that. More than anything, I want to work from home because my productivity and quality of work have been at their highest this past year. I very much want to keep that going. While I will miss how nice the HVAC is at the office, I have figured out how to deal at home. I keep the thermostat setting far more strictly in place than the office. But in the summer, I used a fan to supplement the air conditioning. And only a few times did I need a space heater during the winter. Working from home simply makes the very most sense for me and how I work.

Geothermal heat pump

Planning and preparation are keys to the way I live my life.

It’s just sort of my default mode to consider all the factors and make plans.

This is true in just about all of my life. But when my wife and I purchased a house that needed lots of work, the planning was really key for me. I spent lots of nights at the computer with the HVAC learning different renovation techniques. My wife and I really thought that we could do a lot of the changes and renovations ourselves. Of course, we would bring in people like HVAC professionals to relace the heating and cooling equipment and stuff like that. In fact, we had what we thought was a pretty good HVAC replacement plan in place once we closed on the house. Like other appliances in the house, the HVAC equipment was no longer suitable. We figured we’d simply have the heat pump replaced and move on. Well when the HVAC contractor came out to do the inspection, he noted that the ductwork wasn’t suitable either. This was a surprise kink in those plans of mine. The added expense, plus all the work it would take to replace the ductwork was a problem. Thankfully, the HVAC contractor suggested we go with a ductless multi split HVAC set up. He showed us just how this would work and save us money on the HVAC as well. Now, we have a series of ductless heat pumps throughout the house and the heating and cooling is excellent. And that kink in the renovation plans was solved just like that.

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I just booked my first flight for a business trip in over a year.

Business trips are a vital part of what I do for a living.

The company I own requires onsite visits to the clients I serve. And up until last year, I flew wherever I had to go. That all changed when the pandemic hit and we were all relegated to the safety of the air conditioning of home. While I enjoyed working from home in the HVAC, I simply couldn’t perform all of my duties online. So it took a few months before I felt like perhaps traveling would be alright. While I know that airlines were reporting that they were using HEPA filters in the planes, I just wasn’t comfortable flying. So I ended up striking out on the road. It was quite and extended road trip that kept me away from home far more than when I fly. However, I did find some valuable surprises along the way. For one, I was so comfortable in the zone controlled HVAC of my car. Driving, while taking a bit longer, was far more comfortable and enjoyable than flying has been. I also found that staying in mid level hotels is the way to go. Not only are they affordable and clean, they also have the best HVAC units. They are those big wall HVAC units and man the heating and cooling is so consistent with those things. As I plan for this first flight in over a year, I’m glad that I’ll at least have the great HVAC in my new choice for lodging.

heating and air conditioning

We were not so thrilled about that because he was outside practicing burning leaves and stuff, and we told him not to do that

When our kid got into the 8th grade, he had this rather eccentric science teacher. This teacher was teaching the kids how to put together makeshift things such as a makeshift cooling system. All of the kids were interested in this kind of thing because their parents wouldn’t get them cooling systems for their rooms. So I was stunned when our kid had this cheap cooler combined with some tubes that were attached to a fan. When we asked what that thing was, he smiled and said it was his cooling system. I asked how it worked and he showed that we had to add ice water and then turn on the water pump followed by the fan. It provided surprisingly nice cooling, but the main issue was the fact that you had to keep refilling the ice water in order for this makeshift cooling system to work. Still, we were impressed by what he was doing, but thought it was strange that he learned this from his science teacher. The science teacher then wanted to teach all the students how to make fire with a magnifying glass. We were not so thrilled about that because he was outside practicing burning leaves and stuff, and we told him not to do that. We had to explain that it was dangerous and he could catch the house on fire. I’m not sure if the teacher is going to teach them how to make heating systems, portable fireplaces, or what, but this guy is starting to make us worried about what our son is learning.

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Our daughter is getting to an age where she is really starting to express herself more.

She knows that she’s interested in getting into the HVAC industry and she has been studying everything about it. She has plans to get into a good HVAC trade school and she wants to get her HVAC certification as quickly as possible. Well, this guy she ended up dating turned out to be a total jerk. When he learned that she wanted to be an HVAC professional, he laughed and said that was a man’s job. This didn’t go too well and they ended up breaking up. Our daughter was terribly upset and said she could be a great HVAC professional and we also encouraged her and said she definitely could. She actually knew more about heating and cooling systems than most boys did her age. I’m sure even that ex-boyfriend of hers probably knows nothing about heating and cooling systems. He probably doesn’t even know how to change an air filter! When I said that to our daughter, I was able to get her to laugh. Of course changing the air filter is one of the easiest things you can do with the HVAC system maintenance, but it’s also one of the most important things. When our daughter ended up going to a trade school, she ended up meeting a really smart young man and they hit it off beautifully. I guess she just needed somebody who shared a lot of common interests. Recently he proposed to her after they had been working together for a few years. I think they make a wonderful couple.

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I thought it was impressive when our daughter got into a writer’s club.

They kept busy doing different writing projects every single month and they even got these young writers started on their own novels. They were given expert advice and feedback for all the writers and our daughter fell in love with this type of work. She even was able to review the work of her peers to provide her own advice. This was a crucial thing because it taught young writers how to provide constructive criticism for other writers. Our daughter has constantly been busy with all the writing work, and so I took some steps to make sure she was comfortable. First of all, I had to reach out to the HVAC company to see what could be done to provide our daughter with greater comfort. They said we had a few options, but it depended on what we wanted ultimately. I decided that it would be best to have some kind of HVAC zone control, and so they said we could go for a certain upgrade or go with a ductless mini split installation. I didn’t really want to go for a whole new HVAC installation, and I actually wanted to be able to use the ductwork system. This was because I was planning on installing a whole-home UV air purification system too that would also use the ductwork system to filter all the air and make it free of contaminants. Our daughter was happy when she got her own thermostat in her room and she was able to focus better on all her creative writing work.

Whole home air purification

I was alarmed when our son told us he was in a gang. He didn’t seem to understand what the problem was when we questioned him about it. We asked him if he was doing drugs and all kinds of stuff that made him scared. Then we ended up meeting the “gang” and it was just his buddies. They all were in this little gang, and they were as dangerous as the gang on Sesame Street. We were able to relax when we realized it was no big deal. They even had their headquarters inside of a treehouse at one of their houses. They invited us over to see their treehouse and we actually decided to go. We wanted to know what our son was always getting into, and evidently he spent a lot of time at this really cool treehouse. The treehouse had a surprisingly huge amount of space and it was properly insulated with a good roof. On top of that, it was hooked up to a solar panel system and it had a ductless mini split installed. This meant that the treehouse had both heating and cooling so you could hangout inside year round. I wish I would have had access to something like that in my childhood. The closest I got to being in a treehouse was being in a tree that had a single board that you could rest on. I remember us kids would climb the tree and then hop down. It would cause your foot to sting if you weren’t careful and of course there was no heating or cooling system.

commercial air conditioning

My wife and I were working on some renovations in our house.

We bought the house a couple of months before we started making changes.

The two of us knew that the house needed some major repairs, but we were excited to make the changes. My wife and I talked to several different building contractors about our home. We got several different estimates from local contractors and we decided to start with the roof. The roof was very expensive to replace, but we have a 50 year warranty on the work. After that roof was done, my wife and I decided to work on remodeling the kitchen. During the remodel, we ran into some problems with the plumbing. I had a plumber in the house working on the pipes, when the AC stopped working too. It was a very warm Saturday when the problem occurred, and I had to call the AC repair service immediately. The plumber was still working in the kitchen when the HVAC repair person arrived. On the same day that we were installing counters, my wife and I found out that we had to replace the entire AC system as well. The compressor wasn’t working and the unit was 10 years old. My wife and I did not plan to purchase a new HVAC machine until the winter season, but it was unavoidable. Thankfully, we got some pretty good rate quotes on a brand new energy efficient AC and heat pump. We had the machine installed the day after the guy was finished with our countertops.

a/c repair

Last Friday, the governor lifted all of the restrictions that were put in place to help with the covid-19 crisis.

Restaurants no longer have to shorten their hours and businesses can resume activities as normal.

All of the bathrooms will be open and no one is forced to wear a mask to the grocery store anymore. I think it is absolutely dangerous to relax at this point in time. Now is when we need to remain vigilant so we can completely eradicate the virus. One of the best restrictions that came from the Covid19 virus stated that every building needed to have an air purifier. My boss had two air purifiers in the building and he removed both of them as soon as the order was lifted. I’m a little upset that the air purifiers will no longer be in the building. I have terrible allergies and they constantly bother me. I always have watery eyes, a runny nose, and A scratchy throat. When the boss installed the air purifiers in the building, all of my allergy symptoms were reduced. For the past 18 months, I have enjoyed a work atmosphere with a clean indoor air setting. Now that the air purifiers are gone, I’m back to the same allergy symptoms I had in the past. I can’t quit working for this company, because they have great benefits and a decent salary. The kids need braces and dental work done soon and I can’t afford to find something else right now. I’m stuck between a giant rock and a hard place.

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