My aunt Stephanie lives on the other side of the country.
I try to visit Stephanie at least two times a year.
The first time I visited her, it was for her birthday at the end of July, and the weather was sizzling hot and unbearably humid. Since her house is not equipped with a central cooling system, I was very nervous about staying cool and comfortable. Stephanie installed a window air conditioner into the extra bedroom, which worked better than I would have imagined. I really liked that I could adjust the temperature setting to my preference. The wireless remote control was amazingly easy to use. I could stay in bed and set temperature higher or lower, regulate humidity or change the fan speed. I can’t sleep without some white noise, so I also appreciated the noise of the little air conditioner. It was just loud enough to drown out the traffic, the neighbor’s motorcycle, and the windchimes. I was able to sleep without interruption every night of my visit. When I stayed with my aunt a second time, I planned my visit for right after Thanksgiving. Although her house has a brand-new heating system, I was not as comfortable. There is a single control panel, located in the living room, with determines the temperature for the entire house. The room is dominating by windows, and with the relentless cold winds, the living room gets colder than the other rooms in the house. The control unit reacts accordingly, and the room I was staying in was miserably hot. I was so uncomfortably hot, I could barely fall asleep at night and then kept waking up coated with sweat. Plus, the heating system is silent and offers no white noise at all. There was nothing to disguise the sounds of the traffic, motorcycles, windchimes, and snowplows. I even heard the heater kick on and off several times throughout the night. I’m now asking Aunt Stephanie to invest in zone control for her house. It would be great for me to have my own control unit to regulate, and my aunt would save some money on heating costs. Her extra bedroom is normally empty, and she’s still paying to keep it heated.