Turn on the Company Heat -or- Baby, It's Cold Inside
"Honey, did you turn on the Company Heat?" Wrapped in a bath towel, dripping, I called down the stairs. Our dinner guests were due any minute, and I hadn't reset the thermostat.
The Company Heat, like the Good China or the Clean House, is trotted out whenever folks are invited into our home. Judging from their blue fingers and barely concealed, involuntary shivers, it's not enough, but we like to think that at least it shows we're trying.
It's not that we're cheap (much), or strapped (much), it's simply that we like things cooler than most folks. Thanks to a programmable thermostat and too much free time, I've turned into a temperature-obsessed old guy. Not quite a Weather-Channel-24/7-plus-hourly-updates-via-SMS obsessed, but close.
So let's just 'fess up to the numbers here at the top, then explain later. Our house stays at 63 degrees during the day, and 60 overnight. The Company Heat, a lavish buffet of BTUs, cranks us all the way up to 66 degrees. Bring a sweater. Bring two.
This advice comes from a guy whose preferred operational range (read label on the back of my neck) is between 65 and 35 degrees, lower while exercising. Hence my pioneering wardrobe system, dubbed "bed to sled" by my sweet wife. The same thick sweatpants that are just right for lounging in the TV room or reading in bed are also perfect for running up and down drifted snowbanks while sledding. The heat of exertion perfectly balances the cold outside. Bed to sled. Look for it at Kohl's next season. (Only a Wisconsin company could get the concept and make it sell.)
Our family fondness for the Big Chill has caused bewilderment in our seemingly endless stream of long-term house guests. Not guests, really; short-term residents is more accurate. Somehow, without really planning it, we have through the years been hosts to numerous co-workers during their career transitions. In most cases, we had barely even met before they moved in, but trusting instinct and mutual acquaintances, we would throw an extra potato in the pot and invite them to stay. Gladly, in all cases, this has proved the founding of lifelong friendships. The first time, we were newlyweds of barely one year, and lived in a tiny southside house. Our guests were in the process of relocating from Washington D.C., and were five months pregnant when they arrived. What with the leaky windows, non-existent insulation and aging furnace, we never had a problem agreeing on the house temp; everyone was always cold, especially the expectant mother. They moved out as soon as they could find a place, but it was a chilly six weeks for her.
Later, in our current house, when we had the choice, we kept it cool. We'd become attached to the numerous salutary effects of a cold house. Sleeping with the windows open certainly encourages field trips across the queen-size for mutual warmth, and it makes hunkering down with your book and your spouse all the more inviting.
Consequently, our later guests/residents had to deal with the solution originated by our friends Greg and Katy, who faced a similar problem every time their parents visited. Normally comfortable at 67 degrees (heating profligates!), they found their aging parents kept nudging the temp up past 73. "We're freezing!" whimpered the senior set. "We're roasting!" sweated the younger. Finally, an accommodation was reached. "We can't possibly make it hot enough for you to be happy," quoth the homeowners, "and meeting in the middle satisfies no one. So we're just going to keep it where it is. Bundle up, or bundle out." Hard words to direct at them as swaddled your own infant self, but it worked.
We offer our overnight guests some mitigation in the form of BSQ, our beloved Brown Sugar Quilt. Filled with "Genuine Czechoslovakian goose down" I'm assured, from a now-defunct factory in Cudahy, America's Czechoslovakian Goose Down Distribution Center, this thing is massive. The lead vest worn by an x-ray tech is a shimmering chemise by comparison. Heave this hide over your chilly frame, turn out the light, and experience your worst buried-alive nightmare. We've actually had house guests injure themselves trying to creep out from beneath its vast bulk; one turned an ankle while rolling over in bed. But heavens, it's toasty! This warmth is accompanied by a curious sweet aroma somewhere between caramelized brown sugar and wet socks on a radiator; not an unpleasant smell, actually, just unusual, and kind of homey.
The great irony of this all is that even to keep our house cold, we have through the past decade gradually invested thousands of dollars in refurbishing our house for energy efficiency: new windows, new siding, new insulation, new roof, and finally, a new furnace, installed by HVAC Savant Vic Misurelli. "I remember every wand I ever sold," Mr. Ollivander told Harry Potter, and it seems Vic remembers every furnace he --or his dad-- ever installed. Proof: while assessing our old furnace, Vic remarked without even looking, "Put your finger right through here. Feel that slot? Dad cut those slots in the ignition chamber to increase efficiency. Six months later, the manufacturer issued a service bulletin recommending everyone do that." The guy's a freakin' genius.
Why spend so much time dwelling on how cold my house is? Well, it seems a particularly timely topic as temps plunge to interstellar ranges and the Kelvin scale looks reassuring. Today's scary minus six degrees Fahrenheit is a toasty 252.038889 degrees Kelvin. That's gotta feel like Company Heat to someone. Say, Neptunians.
But kvetch all you wish about needing another sweater at work. It's nothing compared to what Kenosha's homeless families face this week. Please: make a gift to Shalom Center and the INNS program this week. Cash, food, toiletries, blankets, warm clothes, or your time as a volunteer -- they all bring Company Heat to someone for whom this is no joke at all.
The Company Heat, like the Good China or the Clean House, is trotted out whenever folks are invited into our home. Judging from their blue fingers and barely concealed, involuntary shivers, it's not enough, but we like to think that at least it shows we're trying.
It's not that we're cheap (much), or strapped (much), it's simply that we like things cooler than most folks. Thanks to a programmable thermostat and too much free time, I've turned into a temperature-obsessed old guy. Not quite a Weather-Channel-24/7-plus-hourly-updates-via-SMS obsessed, but close.
So let's just 'fess up to the numbers here at the top, then explain later. Our house stays at 63 degrees during the day, and 60 overnight. The Company Heat, a lavish buffet of BTUs, cranks us all the way up to 66 degrees. Bring a sweater. Bring two.
This advice comes from a guy whose preferred operational range (read label on the back of my neck) is between 65 and 35 degrees, lower while exercising. Hence my pioneering wardrobe system, dubbed "bed to sled" by my sweet wife. The same thick sweatpants that are just right for lounging in the TV room or reading in bed are also perfect for running up and down drifted snowbanks while sledding. The heat of exertion perfectly balances the cold outside. Bed to sled. Look for it at Kohl's next season. (Only a Wisconsin company could get the concept and make it sell.)
Our family fondness for the Big Chill has caused bewilderment in our seemingly endless stream of long-term house guests. Not guests, really; short-term residents is more accurate. Somehow, without really planning it, we have through the years been hosts to numerous co-workers during their career transitions. In most cases, we had barely even met before they moved in, but trusting instinct and mutual acquaintances, we would throw an extra potato in the pot and invite them to stay. Gladly, in all cases, this has proved the founding of lifelong friendships. The first time, we were newlyweds of barely one year, and lived in a tiny southside house. Our guests were in the process of relocating from Washington D.C., and were five months pregnant when they arrived. What with the leaky windows, non-existent insulation and aging furnace, we never had a problem agreeing on the house temp; everyone was always cold, especially the expectant mother. They moved out as soon as they could find a place, but it was a chilly six weeks for her.
Later, in our current house, when we had the choice, we kept it cool. We'd become attached to the numerous salutary effects of a cold house. Sleeping with the windows open certainly encourages field trips across the queen-size for mutual warmth, and it makes hunkering down with your book and your spouse all the more inviting.
Consequently, our later guests/residents had to deal with the solution originated by our friends Greg and Katy, who faced a similar problem every time their parents visited. Normally comfortable at 67 degrees (heating profligates!), they found their aging parents kept nudging the temp up past 73. "We're freezing!" whimpered the senior set. "We're roasting!" sweated the younger. Finally, an accommodation was reached. "We can't possibly make it hot enough for you to be happy," quoth the homeowners, "and meeting in the middle satisfies no one. So we're just going to keep it where it is. Bundle up, or bundle out." Hard words to direct at them as swaddled your own infant self, but it worked.
We offer our overnight guests some mitigation in the form of BSQ, our beloved Brown Sugar Quilt. Filled with "Genuine Czechoslovakian goose down" I'm assured, from a now-defunct factory in Cudahy, America's Czechoslovakian Goose Down Distribution Center, this thing is massive. The lead vest worn by an x-ray tech is a shimmering chemise by comparison. Heave this hide over your chilly frame, turn out the light, and experience your worst buried-alive nightmare. We've actually had house guests injure themselves trying to creep out from beneath its vast bulk; one turned an ankle while rolling over in bed. But heavens, it's toasty! This warmth is accompanied by a curious sweet aroma somewhere between caramelized brown sugar and wet socks on a radiator; not an unpleasant smell, actually, just unusual, and kind of homey.
The great irony of this all is that even to keep our house cold, we have through the past decade gradually invested thousands of dollars in refurbishing our house for energy efficiency: new windows, new siding, new insulation, new roof, and finally, a new furnace, installed by HVAC Savant Vic Misurelli. "I remember every wand I ever sold," Mr. Ollivander told Harry Potter, and it seems Vic remembers every furnace he --or his dad-- ever installed. Proof: while assessing our old furnace, Vic remarked without even looking, "Put your finger right through here. Feel that slot? Dad cut those slots in the ignition chamber to increase efficiency. Six months later, the manufacturer issued a service bulletin recommending everyone do that." The guy's a freakin' genius.
Why spend so much time dwelling on how cold my house is? Well, it seems a particularly timely topic as temps plunge to interstellar ranges and the Kelvin scale looks reassuring. Today's scary minus six degrees Fahrenheit is a toasty 252.038889 degrees Kelvin. That's gotta feel like Company Heat to someone. Say, Neptunians.
But kvetch all you wish about needing another sweater at work. It's nothing compared to what Kenosha's homeless families face this week. Please: make a gift to Shalom Center and the INNS program this week. Cash, food, toiletries, blankets, warm clothes, or your time as a volunteer -- they all bring Company Heat to someone for whom this is no joke at all.