My latest preoccupation is ductless air conditioning.
Having a "latest preoccupation" at all, seems to be part of my temperament which, if you put any stock in things like the Myers-Briggs test, is ENFP.
Any any rate, I started getting interested in the topic about the time that The Storm of the Century Part XXVII was swirling around our exhausted heads last weekend.
As surely as I know I will gouge my eyes out if I have to gaze upon another snow drift, so too do I know that I will be grumpy as all get-out if summer turns up her humidex.
Generations of my ancestors helped hone my particular brand of low heat tolerance in the peat bogs of Scotland. Cold and damp we can handle. Sweat, not so much.
If I had central heating, adding an air conditioner to my furnace might be the easy way to go. But I don't. I have electric heat and a very effective little gas pot-bellied stove in my living room.
So, the other day, while flipping through one of the design mags that seem to keep finding their way into my grocery bags, I came upon a unit called Mr. Slim. It's by Mitsubishi.
My BFF and I had something quite a lot like it when we lived in mushi-atsui (wet-hot) Higashi-Urawa, Saitama Prefecture, Land of the Rising Sun, back in the 80s.
It looked like the perfect solution. You can probably get it in the Hello Kitty version.
So, for the past few days, I've had a new guy come and do an estimate nearly every day.
It's a little disheartening.
It would seem that cool comes with a rather steep price tag. Nearly $6,000.
A love of damp isn't the only thing I inherited from the Scots. I can be pretty tight with the dollar, too.
If I'm going to drop six grand on something, it's got to be good.
It has to either involve twenty five hours on an international flight and three days of worship at the hill top monkey temple, or it needs to be something that I look at every day -- like kitchen cupboards, for example -- and go, "wow, that was a swell way to drop some dough."
So I'm losing interest in air conditioning, for now.
I may even need to go back to my first love, refinishing my kitchen counters. Look for future postings on the psychology of paint chip naming.
And anonymous, let me know when you'd like your banana bread delivered. I'll need to bake you some before the weather heats up.
2 comments:
First of all, let me just say that I love when blogs collide. Secondly, I am just so happy not to have to spit my tea onto my keyboard while reading about poop that I will now write at length about air conditioning:
My understanding of air conditioning systems is that there are generally five types that operate under similar principles:
1. Central Air Conditioning which uses conventional ductwork,a large compressor outside and an evaporator inside. Cools the entire house
2. Flexible Ductwork which utilizes flexible tubing to distribute cool air throughout your home. You would require a place to position the compressor, which can often be an attic or crawl space.
3.There is the ductless kind, like your Dear Mr. Slim, which distribute cool air from one, centralized unit without duct work. The evaporator is built into the Slim unit, and it runs to a compressor outside (or in the attic or crawlspace).
4.There is also the window-based units which work on a similar principle to ductless, but take up window space and are more Mr. Husky than Mr. Slim.
5.Portable units. These are units on wheels which can be placed in any room and can cool a good sized apartment. The good part about the portable units is that they can be rolled into storage at the end of the summer. This could be a good solution (and wouldn’t require the long-term commitment of coils, conduits and wall installations) and the price tag might make your Scottish heart soar.
don't you remember those japanese classrooms? my body learned to sweat in new places while teaching engrish in the land that temperature regulation forgot!
if heat is that intolerable, i think you should pay $6000. let's fast forward to july: living in the middle of an urban heat island like toronto, unable to sleep in the stifling humidity of a sweltering summer night, with your canadian tire fan blowing hot air onto you. you are going to feel like $12000 for air con is a sweet deal.
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