New Thermostat

I woke up yesterday morning and it was 55 degrees. No…not outside…in my apartment.Yup, the temperature in my apartment was a balmy 55 degrees. If it was summer, I would open the windows to let the heat in. Since it is winter, I thought I could just turn up the heat but lo and behold, my heat was already set for 70 degrees! Yet it was 55 degrees.

I waited until 9:00 before I called my landlord (just to be polite) and then nicely explained that it was frigid in my apartment and that he had promised to put sandbags around the outside to block the cold. Usually, when there is a normal amount of snow, there would be a snowbank around the outside of my place. Since there is just a crawl place instead of a basement, the cold just creeps in through the wood floors. Granted my landlord did have it insulated but it only took the edge off the cold, it didn’t stop it completely.

When I asked my landlord about the sandbags that he had promised, he said it was too late because there was some snow out there. HUH??? There is only about an inch or so of snow and it isn’t the least bit piled up against the building and he could certainly put sandbags on top of the snow.

I let that argument go and instead told him that it is frigid in my place and could he please do something about it. He said he would be right over.

He came over and agreed that it was cold (thanks for confirming that) and said he thought the thermostat was broken. He said he would call and have it replaced.

I waited and waited and finally he called and said the furnace guy would be here in 45 minutes, at 3:30, to replace the thermostat.

So I waited and waited and waited some more. At 4:50 I picked up the phone to call my landlord and tell him they didn’t show and at that point they pulled in the driveway.

Two guys came in and one immediately set to work. The other one felt the baseboards and said they were warm but not very hot. He said it would be better once they replaced the worn out thermostat.

Then he suggested that I not have my couch up against the baseboard. That it was blocking the heat. I told him that I have lived here for over ten years, the couch has always been there and I have only had a problem with the heat in the last couple of years. He tried to convince me otherwise but I just told him that isn’t the problem.

They finished work on the thermostat and explained how it works. After giving me the instruction manual, the older guy tried again to tell me that my couch shouldn’t be up against the baseboard. I asked him where he expected me to put it since the baseboard ran all along the wall. In my head I was thinking “should I put it in the middle of the room and climb over it every time I walked through the living room?” He finally gave up on the suggestion and they both left (I did thank them for the work and wished them a good evening).

I’m not sure if this has made a difference or not. After all  the temperature has risen outside so it is warmer in the apartment anyway. I won’t know until tomorrow night when the temperature drops again.

All in all, I am glad for the new thermostat. At least it makes me feel like I am one step closer to having a comfortable place to live in the dead of winter.