Long Day

We had a long day today. Poor Gordo was so worn out he skipped dinner entirely. We had a ductless air conditioner and heater installed in the family room and kitchen. The installation crews got here at 0900 and left at 1950, although they did go for a quick lunch.

Our house is H-shaped, with the family room and kitchen (really all one room) on the south leg of the H, the four bedrooms and two bathrooms on the north leg, and the living and dining rooms on the crossbar. There's a covered entry on the east side and a covered patio on the west side. The way our HVAC system works, combined with the orientation of the house, the trees in the back yard, the position of the sun, the three pilot lights in the built-in double oven, and the 22-cubic foot side-by-side refrigerator, leaves the family room and kitchen warm in the summer and cool in the winter.

The ductless unit is pretty much the same as the units you see in motel rooms, except that there's a separate compressor and the unit hangs from the wall, up by the ceiling, and is operated by a remote control. Its purpose is to augment the whole-house system and, coupled with the back-up electrical generator we installed eight years ago, keep this room cool in a power outage, even in the summer. We should have put it in long ago, if you ask me. What really tipped us over the edge was the way the summer monsoons have been sneaking into the Antelope Valley. We used to have them for maybe a week or two, if we had them at all, but recently we've had them for a month or more. That humidity just kills me.

The unit also has a heat pump, just in case we lose power in the winter. Our whole-house unit runs on 230 but the ductless unit runs on 110, which is what we set the back-up generator up to provide. We could have added 230, but to do it now would require a new cross-over switch and inspections by the city and Edison, which were big hassles when we installed it originally. So we decided to leave it alone.

Gordo had to watch everything, which is why he's so tired. He spent most of the day in a crate, either in the family room or back in our bedroom, and got no naps at all. Normally, he sleeps in until about noon, frolics around the back yard for a while and then sleeps all afternoon. Not today, through. I'm pretty tired, myself, but not nearly as tired as he is.

I got some beautiful silk lace yarn in gorgeous colors. I'll take a photo and get it posted here as soon as I get organized. I think I've fallen in love with it and will never be able to give it away.