Use What Works

HEN you realize it's all a big fable...
Im talking about what we need and how it's presented to us...do we really need  half the stuff we have in our life? Maybe..and maybe not. Almost all of it is replacing something we already had.  You probably recall my Working For the Machines post way back...

Yesterday I spoke about air conditioning.  Honestly now here in this area I could not live here without air conditioning! I would have to have a tub of water  handy to get into every hour to cool myself down...if I didn't have AC.  

One time John and I decided to make improvements to our home...bring it up to modern standards, so we went to the bank took out a mortgage and borrowed $16,000.   With this money we had vinyl siding put on our house, (it has the old Asbestos Shingle Siding on it they starting using this product in the 1930's and used it up until the 1970's I figure my house was built in the 1940's) we had all the original windows taken out and had double pane vinyl windows put in except for some that could not be taken out for one reason or another..and we had central heat and air put in the house. (we moved it to this location in 1977) This meant putting duct work in the crawl space, cutting vents in each room, putting in a return which they put in my Cedar Closet..omg and the Heat Pump unit.  It ran solely on Electricity but the heat pump was billed as an inexpensive way of heating your home.  

It was not.  There was a red light and a blue light on it, when the blue light was on you were not using the extra heating elements to heat the house..when the red light was on you were gobbling up Kilowatts at a very expensive rate. So it was always John standing at the thermostat starring at the red light...I was the one who upped the temperature because as a child I was brought up in a mostly Unheated home because I was raised by my widowed mom who had to fed 3 kids pay rent and utilities on a factory salary.  Heat was a luxury we could not afford most of the time...Another story for another day.

But in summer the central air was awesome...we loved it.  The heating part was not good at all.  This central unit quit working about 20 yrs later.  Would need to be replaced...cost $12-1500.  So it never was replaced...and let me explain.  So I purchased 3 small units for $300 placed them in rooms that would provide me with good coverage.  If I spend $1500 for a new unit, when it breaks down or needs to be serviced that's expensive to the tune of hundreds.  If one of my window units goes out they still cost about $100-120.  These are 5,000 BTU units.  I can easily afford that...even if all 3 go out in one year..I could buy 15 units for the cost of replacing the central unit! So to me it's a simple thing and I can replace these small units myself without help.  And they are energy efficient and cheap to use.

I remember we had to have our central unit serviced about every 2 years it was always a big bill...$200 or $300 and it was always freezing up and just yada yada yada so if  you have plenty of extra cash laying around then go for it, but if you're like me I just want to be cool if possible, do the window units cool as well as the old one...maybe not if I had purchased larger BTU's probably...but those units are big heavy and expensive to replace so I stay with these small ones.
I would love to have that duct work removed from under my house and the old unit removed, and the duct holes closed in..but if I leave it in place AND I win the lottery Im good to go.  Problem is I don't play the lottery. 

NOW they want you to buy insurance to cover your appliances...I am pretty good at repairing my own things if you watch my YouTubes you will know that. So Im no stranger to giving it a try...and I've repaired my Dish Washer when it was leaking, My washing Machine when it would not spin, My dryer when it was over heating, My electric stove, when it basically blew up...but I think I will draw the line at the Fridge.  I can do what I did vacuum the coils, and unplug it and let it defrost in case there is an ice plug in the drain, I installed the ice maker and installed the water inlet which means I had to go UNDER my house to do it, but when messing with a compressor and the coolant there is little I can do.

I think part of the issue was the temperature inside the house...I turned the fridge up and it's working much better but it's using more power! 

Back in my studio apartment in Brooklyn it had a college dorm sized fridge...it was not frost free so every so often you had to turn it off and defrost it...one day I grew impatient and used a screwdriver to pick at the ice and punctured one of the Freon lines..and that was that.  I simply took that one to the curb and drove to Home Depot and bought a new one dragged it in put it in place and then when I paid my rent the next month I put a note in there stating what I had done and Stanley actually said he would reimburse me 1/2 since it was an old one I had replaced and he did. 

Another thing I completely disagree with is gutters!  OMG what a homeowners nightmare.  Every year sometimes twice a year dragging a ladder around to clean out the leaves, the clogged down spouts, and they cause roof rot from splash back..Finally removed the last one from my house last yr...so nice not to worry about that!! Now they sell you gutters and leaf guards, there is no leaf guard for Pine Needles, they can fit into the smallest little hole, so those leaf guard demos you see on TV is bunk if you have trees with needles, or small leaves...They get under the hood of my car so I know they can get into those gutters!

So don't fall for the most expensive way to live, try the easy way first if you get along fine with it, then why go any farther than you have to?  The finest of the fine is not always the best for us. These days there's a new everything just around the corner, but do we really need it?  I for one would be happy to purchase an electric car when they become affordable, but I probably won't be around by then.  Until then I still have 2 very sustainable means of transportation  to fall back on
MY 2 LEGS! OH and no you won't need one of those robots to clean your house you can do it!!

Of course once the Zombie Apocalypse happens, which could be any day now, we will all have to revert to the old ways Hope you know some of them.  I spent the first 6 yrs of my life in a home without electricity, no running water, and I had no clue what a Grocery Store was..so even tho I was a young kid, I watched and I learned..

So that was on my mind kinda a left over from yesterdays talk about AC.  Today I got up too late for my walk.  The heat index which is temp combined with humidity was already 94  at 8:30 am I opened the door and just slammed  it right back..I did go out and water my Garden pots, and let the dogs go for their morning run in the field they didn't even enjoy that they came right back in the house panting like crazy...even Flossie who likes to spend her mornings on the back porch,  came in and now they are sleeping like two babies on the rug in the living room. So I did 10 jumping jacks, 10 planks, 10 of those black cat stretches, and some running in place... and I was done!

This morning I watched a YouTube about Mullen and the healing properties of it,,,everything from hemorrhoids to lung trouble, I know where one is growing I will go collect some seeds would love to get it going in my field...this year I finally got one thistle to grow, bloom and now is in full seed  head.  I look forward to more thistle in my field.  Speaking of fields my neighbor has a horse and a burro; the burro brays everyday when they come out to feed them I have not seen or heard him bray in a couple weeks...I think he may have passed away how sad.  I will miss him!