Celebrating the Tiniest of Accomplishments

We moved into our house in May, and had never run the furnace at all until the other night. We lasted to our cut-off date of November 1st, our traditional green light day for turning on the heat for the first time each winter. We were pleased with ourselves, buoyant, even: it didn't seem that cold, maybe we wouldn't even need it right away. But SodaBoy decided that we should perhaps test it out to make sure everything was working correctly.

Hard to argue with that logic, so the evening of November 2nd, we fired that baby up to a toasty 62 degrees. The familiar smell of burnt dust let us know all was in order: the furnace works. The thing was cranking along, though, completely ignoring my 62 degree setpoint. Up, up, up the temperature went. At 65, I got a little panicky, pressing random buttons in a herky-jerk manner.

Neither of had ever used a digital programmable thermostat before. There didn't seem to be enough buttons. No matter what I selected, the damn thing was determined to reach 70. Someone had programmed the lousy thing to maintain 70 degrees 24 hours a day. By 67 degrees, sweaty and frustrated, we decided the stupid thing was broken, and shut the heat back off.

Obviously, turning the thermostat on and off whenever we got cold is not a sustainable way of life in this climate. SodaBoy checked the website and pronounced it useless. I was determined to learn how to use the damn thing, so I played around with it more yesterday. I got into the set schedule menu, and programmed it to maintain 62 degrees during waking hours and 56 degrees at night. And by jove, it worked!

It is completely and utterly ridiculous how proud of myself I am, but I can't help it. I rock!