Last night we found the county assessor’s card on our door when we got home from dinner with Scott & Stephanie. Looks like our unbelievably low property taxes won’t last long. Damn.
We also had the furnace serviced for what appears to be its first time since installation. It was fairly dirty and the jets were somewhat corroded, but it kicked on for the first time this morning when the temperature inside reached 61F. I’m pretty sure Michelle is going to crank the temperature up to an opulent 64F though. I’ll just have to turn it back down afterwards.
Our last place had a fancy thermostat where you could set temperature ranges for days and times. This one is just your classic knob with a temperature scale. The fancy one was nice because we could drop the temp to 60F overnight and have it start warming to 64F in the morning, then drop back down during the day while we were away. I think it counts as one of those situations where technology improves life. I guess the furnace probably can be lumped in with the fancy thermostat too.
You can replace the Thermostat with one of those fancy programable ones…. They are sooo nice! Our old house had one, which Delbert put in and before we moved into our new house he put one in. It so nice to set it and then forget it. Plus it’s nice to wake up to a warm house and come home to one as well…
1) We had the dreaded card appear on our door a year or two ago. I called. She said, “The house is in as good a shape as it appears on the outside?” “Yes” says I. That was it. No increase in the taxes beyond the regular rate it’s been going up every year.
2) SQDancer is right. The thermostat is an easy replacement. You can pick up an electronic setback thermostat just about anywhere (they even carry them in the hardware section of Fred Meyer!). There are all of four or six color-coded wires (depending on the setup) – pull the old one off and stick the new one on. 5 minute job. Ahh the joys of working HVAC through college. :-)
See, that is why you should just plan on renting your entire life. In fact, I really have no plans to move from my current apartment, though I might spruce it up a bit.
And yeah, just go to Home Depot and get a $90 replacement thermostat, or just do like me and never turn on the heat. I think sweaters work much better and are much more affordable (considering I have a bunch in my closet already).
I’m pretty lucky right now. Our apartment is kind of like Troy and my dorm room- right over the boiler. Our windows are also very efficient. I doubt we’ll have to turn the heat on this winter.
The average high temperature in Sacramento for Dec. is 64 degrees. If we’re lucky we’ll go without…one of the things that is quite odd is the apartment we’re getting into in CA has a fireplace, we had 13 inches of snow in one day in DC but no fireplace…now we’ll not have any snow but a roaring fire “as needed.”