First World Problems: Desert Style.

[cactuswatcher]

Half the continent is freezing and I'm unhappy because I need my furnace this morning. Every time I hear the blower start, I think there's money burning.

I just tested the furnace a couple days ago to see how it was running. Now it's in the 40s outside and it was close to 60 in the house when I woke up. No wonder the cat was huddling next to or on top of me most of the night. It's not like I didn't know it was going to be chilly. I threw a second blanket on the bed last night, as I went to bed. I got about 15 days between turning the A/C off for the season and turning the furnace on for the season this morning. That means just over two weeks ago, it was getting up to 90 in the afternoon and I had no blankets on the bed. Last year it was about a month between A/C and heating seasons. Some years I only get a week. Only in Arizona.

I'm being whiny and I know it. When I was a little kid my older brother had to get up in early the morning before school and pull the clinkers out of our coal furnace. What a dirty mess the coal furnace was. We got a propane furnace and later a gas furnace before it was my turn to make sure the coal in the coal bin was going in the auger properly and the cilnkers (unburnable metalic residue from the coal pieces) were dumped outside. I remember the family huddling in the morning around the register beside the piano in the living room, the warmest spot in the the living area of the house on the cold mornings when the heat was turned up for the day.

Here in Arizona, I've got high ceilings so most of the heat to start with rises up and heats the air high above my head. Once the air up there warms up, it won't be so bad. But right now the furnace is running and running, trying to keep the thermostat warm.

Comments

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I didn't bother turning the AC off. Just switched to the heater this AM. Not like the AC was actually running when it was on, for a while, anyway.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I like to think I'm saving a little by toughing out a few days when the temps might creep above the point where the A/C might run. This year I don't think you lost a dime by waiting.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

When I switched to the heater last night, it was the arthritis talkin'. I don't think I actually need it yet otherwise. I've got heating pads, blankets, and my own internal, middle-aged heat source working for me.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

In SC, sometimes we have AC one week, heat the next, then back to AC, then back to heat. Monday here was over 70 and this morning under 20.

I remember life with woodstoves, and the cold sheets at night and cold floors in the morning. And building up the fire from the hopefully banked coals! It takes a while for a stove to heat up....

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

My grandmother still had one of those old-fashioned bed warming pans on long handles. I don't remember whether she had a furnace or not. There were lots of fireplaces in her house and she cooked on a wood stove, so even in summer wood chopping was a frequent chore.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I did love sitting next to the wood stove once it was warm, though. And they are really great to cook on. Still, don't think I'll ever go back to splitting logs and carrying out ashes, to say nothing of those cold mornings (unless somebody else got up first)!