heat hoarders

We made it through the heat. Monday night was particularly cursed, since it was raining and we had to close the balcony screen door. We were stuck in an intensely humid 88-degree house, with cool fall air just outside where we couldn’t reach it.

But the rain cooled things down. It’s been mid-60s during the day, mid-40s at night…and mid- to upper-70s in the house. Right now (Sunday morning), it’s 58 outside and 75 inside. It’s fascinating to me. I never realized how much a building generates and stores heat. With absolutely no temperature regulation, I figured we’d be down to the ambient temperature by now, but it’s not even close.

I’ve never paid attention to this stuff before. In the old apartment, the thermostat was broken, and there was a wall AC unit. Life was simple: If it was too hot, you turned on the AC. If it got too cool, you turned off the AC. If it got way too cool, you pressed a button to switch the system to heat. That was it. No need to know temperatures.

Then we moved to a place with a working thermostat and central AC, and life was still simple. AC was set-and-forget (except for roommate’s periodic complaints about underperformance). So the past month has been a new experience of constantly cross-checking the outside temperature against the inside temperature. Come to think of it, it’s common on a fall day to step outside and find it much cooler; I just never quite registered it until now.