Tuesday, February 27, 2018

New Heat Pump + Air Conditioner

We've had problems with our heat pump/ac unit since we moved in here 7 1/2 years ago. It was pretty much a given that when it was time to switch from ac to heat or vice versa, we were going to have to call someone in to repair it. We recently decided we'd finally had enough fun spending money on having it fixed seasonally and that it was time to replace that old thing. (It was going on 18 years.) So, a couple of weeks ago it was done, and I'll tell you what, it has really made a difference.


The day the guys were here to replace it was a cold one and with the heat being switched off the house got down to about 63 degrees. Quite chilly but luckily it was just me here and no freezing kiddo's to worry about. As soon as they'd hooked everything up they switched it on and within about half an hour the house was up to 68 degrees! It would have taken our old system at least twice as long to heat the house back up.

Since we were having everything replaced we decided to also add a whole house humidifier and an air scrubber. We've had the new stuff for a few weeks now and I have to say I just LOVE having the humidifier. It's really helped with all the static electricity in the house and I no longer have to worry about shocking my fingers clean off my hand when I touch anything metal. It's also been great for Dakota as her hair no longer floats around her head and lies flat. :)

The verdict is still out on the air scrubber. I'm not completely sold on what it does (or how I'll even determine it's doing what they say it does) and so far the only thing I've noticed with it is a slight "sterile" smell it gives. I use the word sterile because I can't think of another word for it. The first night we had it on I couldn't sleep for the smell but now I don't notice it much at all. Every now and again I'll smell it but over time it supposedly won't smell at all...we'll see. And, in case you're wondering, it isn't a bad smell, but seems like a scent you'd find in a hospital or doctors office...hard to explain and possibly not what you'd want your house to smell like.

About three weeks ago now we noticed that we weren't getting much hot water when we were giving the kids baths/showers at night. It seems that one of the heating coils inside of our water heater has gone out so I guess that'll be the next thing we'll have to replace; the water heater is also nearly 18 years old. We are thinking about going with a tankless style, which seems awesome, but we're waiting on our handy dandy contractor to come out and go over the details with us...stay tuned!

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