HVAC means "You are a gigantic idiot"

I bought this house we live in about six years ago, maybe seven now. This was back when I was single and doing my drive-by letter campaign. Here's how it worked:

1. Drive through neighborhoods I liked


2. Identify homes clearly in disrepair or owned by old people (evidenced by grass that grows straight to the foundation or the absence of landscaping decoration, with the notable exception of plastic flowers)


3. Look up owner information on tax records


4. Write owner a letter offering to buy their home should they ever decide to move


5. Wait for them to call me back

You would not believe my success rate from my simple letters. Yes, I sent a lot of them. But I probably got a dozen phone calls on homes I was interested in, usually a few months to a year later.


The house I own now, I had written a letter one rainy day in October. The following March, the owner's two adult daughters called me. They were selling mom's house and did I want to look at it before they put it on the market?

I did, I fell in love, and I bought it. Warts and all.

Financially it's been a great investment. Emotionally it's been my ballyhoo. I don't know how to spell that.

I just clicked the Delete button, because it literally would have taken me twenty minutes to tell a two minute story.

Here's the barebones of it: I hated this house because the two back bedrooms and my bathroom had no heat (along with twenty other reasons which shall wait for a post of their own). I called my HVAC guy out. He turned on the thermostat upstairs, that I've left turned off for three years.

PRESTO CHANGE-OH, a magic damper opened and now we have heat in the entire house. Which is something to behold. I can get dressed without clothes that are freezing cold. The thought of sitting down to tinkle in my bathroom no longer brings me to tears.

And the biggest win? I no longer lay my son down to bed at night in fear. For the last three winters I've had to run a ceramic heater in his room to keep it at a livable temperature. Every. Single. Night. I would put him to bed and pray to God nothing bad happened.

No more fear and danger! No more cold underwear! I still hate this house, but it got better by about .05% that day. And no, I am not dwelling on the fact that I could have fixed the heat three years ago by turning on the thermostat upstairs. No sirree.

- H