Sleeping Weather

Dearest Rachel –

Yesterday, while I was at the ‘office,’ Logan sent a text to me about there being water on the floor in the basement, both in the utility room and the half-bathroom that rarely ever gets used by any of us. Maybe Daniel was taking a bath upstairs, and he felt the need to head all the way downstairs to use it? But then, he has no compunctions about using the one here on the ground floor, in plain sight of where I sit on my recliner here in the bedroom, so that seems odd – especially since (by definition, since he was contacting me due to my being out of the house) I wasn’t occupying that area. It probably doesn’t matter what his motivations were for being down there; the point is, he was, or at least he saw the water and thought I ought to know about it.

It wasn’t the first time, either; he’d left the lights on down the a couple of days ago, and when I went down there to turn them off (I think it’s part of the Dad Code that we’re all supposed to get bent out of shape about lights being left on and thermostats being overcranked – and don’t worry, we’ll get to that topic soon enough), I noticed a similar puddle down there. To be honest, I had a general idea that it might be an issue with the air conditioner, particularly the condenser – back when we first had one put into this house, you and your dad jerry-rigged a pipe to convey the condensed water to the utility room drain, but it might be that our new unit doesn’t condense in the same spot. In any event, I thought of it as a one-off event at the time and ignored it. Besides, we almost never use the basement, and there’s nothing down there that since leakage threatens, so I wasn’t all that concerned. However, when Logan brought it up to me this second time, I knew I’d have to address the matter.

So I called the HVAC company that I usually do, and since they recognize my phone number (it’s how business is done these days; everything is computerized to the point where the caller ID references your customer file, and so they know what work they’ve done for you), they reminded me that the unit we have here is only about nine months old; any work they would do is under warranty. Good to know.

The guy they sent tinkered around with the unit for several hours, occasionally coming up to tell me about his progress. Most of the time, he seemed to be perplexed; as far as he could tell, all of the diagnostics he was running suggested that everything was running exactly as intended; there weren’t any malfunctions or blockages in the wiring or the piping, but the water at the base of the unit, leaking through two different rooms, told a different story. Finally, however, he discovered a regulator that needed replacing. Not that it wasn’t working, either, but that it was working too well; it was cooling the air running through it to below-freezing temperatures. As a result, the exterior of the pipes around it was getting covered in condensation… and freezing. Then, as the condensation melted in the heat of the day, we got the results we were dealing with. He told us he would order a new one, and install it for us today.

However, in order to prevent him from having to deal with ice buildup, he instructed us to leave the unit off in the hours before he was to return (at around noon today; so it’s going to be another short day at the ‘office,’ not that it matters much). And since I’d noticed that it actually got into the mid-sixties during the night, I figured we could stand to leave it off all night beforehand (which was more than he was asking of us).

And here’s where the story gets to the title I’ve hung onto this letter. I don’t know if you remember growing up in an un-air-conditioned home (and knowing your parents’ frugality, even if you had A/C, it would only have been used in the direst of circumstances. Then again, they had the heat cranked up during the winter, but that was more common after they had that geothermal setup installed – at which point, the complained that their heating bill never fell like they were told it would. Even you rolled your eyes at that, noting that they set their thermostat five degrees higher than they did back when you were a kid living there), but I’m sure there were times when you did without it.

Up here, the weathermen would refer to certain summer nights as having “great sleeping weather”; warm enough to require only minimal coverage, in terms of bedding and pajamas, but cool enough that it was perfectly comfortable, despite however hot the day had been. It was a “Goldilocks zone” of comfort that I’d be hard-pressed to describe in more detail, but you recognized it when you laid down to sleep in it, especially with windows open to take advantage of the night breeze flowing through the bedrooms. Nowadays, we just simulate that effect with ceiling fans and the like.

The thing is, it’s that much harder to describe these days because we no longer deal with such things anymore. We’ve hermetically sealed our houses to the point where the weather outside has little bearing on the ambient conditions inside. As a result, we no longer appreciate those occasional moments, where everything is naturally at its most comfortable and we don’t need artificial modifications to enjoy a comfortable night’s sleep. In fact, we’re usually completely unaware that the external conditions are so optimal in order to appreciate it; it’s not a matter of ingratitude for such lovely weather, but manufactured ignorance of it. Every day indoors is essentially the same as the one before, regardless of what the weather is like outside. Granted, this keeps us insulated from those inclement days, whether too hot, too cold, too wet, too humid, but when everything is “juuust right,” we aren’t even aware of it, let alone appreciative.

The only reason I know about it is because (as you well remember) our bedroom was an addition to the original house, and as such, isn’t connected to the HVAC to begin with. So I can sense the weather better than Logan can (although, since Daniel sleeps in the family room, which is also an addition to the original house, you’d think he’d notice it, too. Then again, the dining and family rooms are open to the sunroom and kitchen, whereas our bedroom can be virtually sealed off from the rest of the house, so it’s not as obvious to him). Not perfectly, of course; I use space heaters in the winter and the ceiling fan in the summer, so as to mitigate the effects of the outdoors in my own way. In fact, I couldn’t open a window if I wanted to; they’ve been closed for so long that I’d be hard pressed to force any of them open. I’d be afraid I’d break them for trying, and as a result, they’ve basically frozen shut. Better that than frozen open, I suppose.

Still, it does keep me from noticing what great sleeping weather we’re having right now until we’re forced to do without the air conditioning for a night like this. And suddenly, such a night doesn’t seem to be all that bad. Maybe we could put off having the system repaired for a day or two…

…ah, who am I kidding? If I waited until it was hot enough to need it, I’d have a much harder time getting them out here to fix it. Better to take care of it now, so that when it gets less comfortable outside, everything is working fine in here, and we don’t even have to notice it, much less complain about it, right?

Anyway, I’ll have to be getting back there when the guy returns with the part he’s wanting to replace, so I’ll talk to you later. Until then, do keep an eye on us, and wish us luck; we’re going to need it.