I have begun this blog column over and over and over again. Because. I don't know where to start. So. I decided to post a photo of the here and now. This is what the window in our dining room looks like. It has a great 10,000 BTU air conditioner that we purchased on June 29th of this year. We purchased 2 of these. One for the dining room. One for the living room. Why?
Now we're going to take a trip back in time...
In February of 2020, we bought a house. It's much bigger than the home we rented from 2012 until February of 2020. During those years, we had a 10,000 BTU air conditioner in the living room and a 6,000 BTU air conditioner in the bedroom. Our home was small. That was plenty to cool it off.
The house we bought is much larger.
The sellers left us 2 portable air conditioners. Fairly new. In good condition. They both worked. One large. One small.
The large 10,000 BTU air conditioner that we had in our old home had seen better days. We decided to get rid of that one. The smaller one was new. We put that in our bedroom.
We put the large portable air conditioner in our main living room.
The smaller portable air conditioner in our dining room.
In our old home, with only the 2 window air conditioners, we were able to rotate the usage. We did not have them running all the time.
We had quite a few heatwaves last Summer.
We noticed that our kitchen was hot.
Very. Very. Very. Hot.
The kitchen cupboard that we kept our plates in bowls in was blazing. The bowls and plates were hot to the touch.
Cooking and baking in the kitchen last Summer was absolutely miserable. I hated it with every ounce of my being. Unless the dining room portable air conditioner was on high and I had a fan blowing on me, I was on the verge of tears.
We honestly thought something was wrong with our house. Why was it so hot in the kitchen? Why couldn't we cool the kitchen off?
This went on until things cooled off in the Fall.
In the Spring of this year, we investigated and spoke to a few acquaintances who offered tips and advice.
We had our first heatwave in May. Much. Too. Early. Lisa put all of the air conditioners in a couple of weeks earlier than we normally do.
Once again, we had the same issue. The kitchen was like walking into an oven. We were on the verge of getting quotes from a heating/cooling specialist.
One night, I decided to do a little research. That ended up lasting for over 2 hours.
I learned a lot about portable air conditioners.
Long story short, if you don't need them as they are intended for, don't use them. What that translates to is portable air conditioners were designed for those who don't have windows compatible with window units or if you're living in a condo that doesn't allow window units.
Based on my research, I also learned is that portable air conditioners don't cool off nearly as well as window units. And, they aren't too energy efficient.
What was happening with ours?
They were pulling in air from our attic through the kitchen. Our existing cupboards were built in the late '60s. There are some tiny crevices that are not exactly tight. It's normally not a problem, but with a portable air conditioner, it will suck in all of the hot attic air. That's why our kitchen was unbearably hot.
When I informed Lisa of everything I learned through those couple hours of research, she spoke to someone she knows who specializes in heating and cooling. They elaborated on all of that. In short, we needed to ditch the use of portable air conditioners in our home and get window units.
A couple of days later, we did just that. It wasn't cheap. We needed 2. One for the dining room. One for the living room. We kept our fingers and paws crossed. Was this the solution or was there genuinely something wrong with our house.
We ordered the air conditioners online. Lisa picked them up that afternoon and installed them shortly after getting home.
We turned both of them on.
Within minutes our kitchen was nice and cool. Our cupboards cooled off almost immediately. After an hour, we learned that we only needed one of those powerful beauties on at a time.
We actually got chilly!
Problem solved.
We've had no issues since then. And. Our electric bill has gone way down.
At the end of the day, it pays to do some research.
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