The Quietest Air Conditioners

The scope is enormous! You know how big your own HVAC system is at home, and how it is strong enough to cool or heat your entire house

When the performers are out there under the lights, in front of the crowd, it can get hot. I work for the facility, not with any one particular band or artist, but my job is very important. Rock bands probably have it the worst, because they are so high-energy on stage, and have the brightest lights. Stage plays are much different, and a lot calmer, but they also rely more on heavy stage makeup, which can run if the actors get too hot. I am the head HVAC tech for the facility, and I work hard to make sure the audience and the performers all get the best possible experience. I don’t do it alone, of course, because the gargantuan size of our climate control system requires a full team of certified experts. If you have never before seen an industrial sized HVAC system, you might just get blown away by the size of these things. The scope is enormous! You know how big your own HVAC system is at home, and how it is strong enough to cool or heat your entire house. Now picture a house one hundred times as big, holding thousands of people a night, and consider how massive that HVAC system needs to be! This is how I make my living, spending all day every day tending to the behemoth heating and cooling system, with its miles worth of ductwork. That’s right, our system has over seven miles worth of air ducts, and I have to make sure every last inch of it is in perfect working condition.

 

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The dry, dusty air was as thick as London fog, and we had to run the central HVAC constantly just to make the air more breathable.

I grew up in a little clutch of houses too small to even be called a town. There was a gas station nearby, and a 12-room hotel, and 30 or 40 houses on the side of a seaside hill. This place was picturesque, quiet, and an amazing place to grow up. I could see the ocean from my front yard, and a half mile up the road were a series of logging trails that led deep into the dense forest. When I was in high school my dad got a new job and we had to move to the midwest, which was a shock to my system. This place was so hot it felt like I would melt whenever I left the safety of the air conditioning. It took a few days before I adjusted the heat, at which point I realized there was something even worse – the air quality. The dry, dusty air was as thick as London fog, and we had to run the central HVAC constantly just to make the air more breathable. Long before COVID people were wearing masks around here, just to serve as an air filter for the air they breathe. We went from changing the air filter in the central system once every two months, to once every two weeks! The air filters were always clogged up with dirt and dusty so quickly, we had to start buying the 12- filter supersized pack. We thought about getting the HEPA air filters, but we went through them so quickly they would be cost prohibitive.

 

 

air conditioning worker

I’m not sure what exactly happened with Aunt Ruth, but she has been crazy my whole life.

She isn’t dangerously crazy, no violence or criminal behavior or anything like that.

She does believe in aliens and government conspiracies, and likes to stay inside her house virtually all of the time. She also doesn’t like strangers coming into her house, which leaves her in quite the pickle. I was one of the only people she allowed to come over regularly, and I helped her out as much as I could. Bringing over groceries is one thing, but when her central HVAC system broke there was not much I could do to remedy it. She said she would pay me $500 if I could fix the cooling system without having to call in a worker. I explained that she could easily find an HVAC tech for less than that amount of money, but it wasn’t about the money for her. She just didn’t want a stranger in her house for any reason, so if I could find a way to fix the cooling she would pay me that money. I had to try, right? I started by finding out the make and model of her air conditioner, and then looking up tutorial videos on Youtube to match it. That took a long time, and didn’t help me fix the cooling, so I decided to make a bold move and buy a small, portable air conditioner from Walmart. It only cost $150, which meant I would still profit a nice $350 and Ruth would have cooling.

 

 

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A lesson I try to teach my kids is that money gives you freedom.

• When you have money of your own, you have the ability to make more choices.

I tell them this to encourage them to go out and find part time jobs, or to cut lawns around the neighborhood, or become babysitting while they are in high school. I don’t just hand out money – I pay the bills and buy the food, and anything else they need to buy for themselves. When they realized how much they wanted to have spending money, they found the motivation to look for work. I don’t let the kids decide when we get to turn down the air conditioner, that is up to me. When they want the cooling levels adjusted they ask me, and I determine if we should turn the thermostat down or not. Usually I decide that it is cool enough already, because I am the one paying the utility bill at the end of the month. The kids decided that they would save up their money to buy a small air conditioner for their end of the house. They thought this meant they could use the A/C as much as they wanted. To some degree they were correct, but before they bought this air conditioner I explained to them that it cost money to run it, as well. If they wanted the cooling they would have to pay part of the utility bill every month. The kids didn’t know that buying the A/C unit was just the first part, and that they had to keep paying to use it.

 

furnace filter

I bought a vacant lot downtown and a couple of months ago I turned it into parking spaces.

• There are several clubs and bars close to the parking lot, so I can charge $15 for parking.

I can charge $20 for parking on the weekends, as long as I have a security guard to watch the lot. I’ve honestly never had anyone complain about the price they have to pay. When I purchased the vacant lot and turned it into parking, I had a contractor come to the lot to paint parking spaces. Everything had to be exactly perfect and within the limits for the city. I had to keep each face exactly eight and a half feet apart and I had to prepare separate parking for handicapped patrons. By law I was required to have one handicap spot for every 10 regular spots that I provided. I hired a night guard and I bought a small mobile building for the guard to sit inside of at night. I didn’t want the guard to stand outside in the rain and I knew it was important to have a place where the guy could keep a till for the parking meters. Unfortunately, I drove by the parking lot last Saturday night and the guard was sleeping inside of the mobile building. I walked all the way up to the guard shack before the guy was alerted. He could have been shot in the back and no one would have seen anything. I am beginning to think that having the guard inside of a portable building at night might not be the best thing.

Portable Restrooms

My daughter picked a good one, I’ll say that.

And that’s great, because going off of some of her previous boyfriends, I wasn’t sure how good she was at judging character.

Anyways, my son in law worked as a HVAC specialist most of his life. When he graduated high school, he went to a local heating and A/C university and graduated as a certified heating and A/C worker. Afterwards, he was hired at a HVAC company nearby. Since HVAC workers are always in high demand, he has been able to not only keep his job, but easily get others if other HVAC corporations proved to have better pay or benefits. Then he grew tired of working for an A/C dealer, and he became an independent A/C technician for a while. This too, wasn’t enough for him, so then he bought out another A/C company and made it his own. He made a lot of changes to that HVAC dealer, and has made a ton of profit over it. But the best part is the fact that this same heating and air conditioning business constantly has fundraisers for charities, and always donates a portion of their profits to charity. I have yet to hear of any other business that does that. He is also always open to maintaining or repairing our air conditioner or furnace, and that is saying a lot because I am sure he works long hours. Overall, he is just a great guy, and I am glad to have him as my son in law.

 

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I’m honestly so happy at how far I’ve come.

It really reminds of a song I used to listen to, and the song would basically describe how it doesn’t seem that you’ve made it far, but when you look back in the past, you see a different version of yourself, the present you have completely changed.

I didn’t understand the meaning of much of the song at the time, but now looking back, I can understand exactly what it was talking about. A few years ago, I was getting into fights and shoplifting. Around the same time, my girlfriend left me when I went to jail. I started drinking heavily, and became addicted. It was my friend that managed to help me correct my situation, because even when drunk I realized I didn’t like the path I was heading towards. With his help, I went to heating and A/C university, and became a certified HVAC technician. Thanks to staying sober, I have been working actively everyday, and I don’t even think about drinking anymore. I love my job as a HVAC tech, and I love to help repair or install heating and air conditioning machines. I’m so glad I discovered my passion for HVAC. I get a decent pay, and I am now seeing someone new. When in those bleak moments, it’s hard to think of any happiness in the future, but it’s there, and you’ll get through the dark moments, and finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. You just have to be patient.

Air conditioning technician

As much as I absolutely love the idea of working from home, and as much as I really enjoy it, I knew there was going to have to be some changes around the home.

One of the changes would be my schedule, because the kids are currently getting up early in the morning and screaming their heads off.

There is no way I can focus with screaming kids in the background. So they are going to have to learn to leave me undisturbed until I am off of work. The second thing that I need to change has to do with my house, and that is the furnace system. The heating unit has been out for forever, and since our winters were pretty mild, I never bothered to get it fixed because of that. However, my home office can get really cold, and since I am now working from home, I don’t want the temperatures affecting my productivity. Not only that, but I am sure my boys can benefit from having a heating unit in the home again, since it seems like kids are more sensitive to cold. I am going to be busy today so I planned on Friday to call the local heating and A/C business, and ask them for HVAC repair. The closest appointment I could get was next week, which is fine. When the next week finally did come, and the HVAC specialist was at our home, he surprisingly was able to repair the furnace in about 30 minutes. Afterwards he left, and we had our heater back.

climate control

When it comes to most jobs nowadays, computers are very crucial to getting things done.

Usually that involves lots of typing, so it’s an issue when you can’t type properly.

I have always been able to type really well and really fast, but if there is something I’ve noticed that will affect my typing is temperature. To be specific, if it’s really cold. Whenever it is really cold in the office building, I find myself freezing up and unable to type. While it is expected for the office to be cold in the wintertime, it is not uncommon for our offices to be ice cold in the spring and summer as well. The reason is because my boss seems to think that the air conditioning system should be blasting all of the time. Sometimes it will be in the 50s outside and yet the A/C will still be running. When we had our previous boss, they never did this, and ever since the new boss allows the air conditioning machine to be on practically 24/7, I have noticed my productivity has gone down. My coworkers and I have talked about it many times, and many of them agree the surplus of the cooling device was just too much. We are all tired of it, and we are thinking of bringing it up to our boss. I am so tired of having to wear a jacket to work just to stay somewhat warm. Even my jacket doesn’t keep my hands warm though. We are hoping that if we bring this issue up and how it affects our productivity, they will turn the air conditioning off for good.

Electric heating system

So I have officially started working from home.

I started a few days ago, and I was incredibly excited.

Everything has been going well so far, but there was something that I knew I needed, and that was a portable air conditioning system. The reason is because my home gets really heated during the day and usually that didn’t matter, because I would be away at work. But now that I am working from home, there is no way I can go without A/C while working from home. I already tried for the first two days, and it didn’t go well. While I could still work, it was incredibly difficult and I went at a much slower pace than I would have had I had air conditioning. By the second day, I knew I needed a portable A/C device. You might be wondering about my central air conditioning system, and the fact is that my current A/C machine is not very efficient. It is close to 15 years old, and needs to be replaced. But I simply just don’t have the money right now, and that is something I would have to save for the future. Right now, I am only thinking about getting a portable A/C unit so that way I can stay cool during work. I already talked to the local HVAC corporation, and they have many available. I plan on buying one this weekend, and I will take a trip to the local HVAC store to pick it up. Then my overheated issues can be a thing of the past.

 

 

Steam boiler