Tuesday, January 26, 2010

It is Ruud!

RuudYesterday five guys drove up to the house packing heat... and cooling. It was a good thing.

Just before Christmas I had noticed that the downstairs heat pump was not pumping much warm air. None actually. Two teams of professionals gave the same diagnosis, the old unit was too far gone to be rehabilitated. I can relate.

After some deliberations a new heat pump was decided upon and yesterday the installation went according to plan, a bit unusual around here. In addition, duct work was run to the new sunroom, making it warmer this winter and cool this summer. The best part is the new unit is quieter and twice as efficient as the old one. We will notice the effect of that in the electric bills and on next year's taxes. It is also a bit larger, as the photo shows. So with weather coming in this week-end, we are good to go.

By the way, we were not in that much distress for the past few weeks even when the temperature dropped into the 20s. The upstairs unit kept the second floor toasty and the backup stove worked like a champ.

Someone said we were lucky to have a good backup. Lucky my warm arse! Good planning I say...a bit unusual around here.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

SHORPY - Always Something Interesting

Madison Sq 1900This is my nomination for Best New WebSite I've Found, 2010.

It really does not get amazing until you click on the View full size link. Most are a reminder of the qualities of glass negatives.

The comments are usually worth reading as well.

Go ahead, spend few hours with Shorpy.