| Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be a college professor, who had time to think great thoughts, instead of always scrambling to get the next broken toilet to flush. I’d probably spend my time conjuring-up all kinds of new scientific laws, like this one I just came up with this week: “The comfort of a room’s temperature is inversely proportional to how much time you’d like to spend there.” That one came to me while talking to customers about rooms in their homes that were too hot. It seemed like we were always talking about master bedrooms, or porches that had been converted into four season rooms, or room extensions designed to provide more space for the family to hang out. Now it doesn’t take a tenured professor to see a pattern here. In all cases these issues were found in new or enlarged living spaces that weren’t there when the house was built. Like before the homeowners decided to expand their perfectly adequate master bedroom into something the size of a small sports arena. These were new spaces that the folks living there at the time wanted so badly, they were willing to spend good money on them. Now I’m sure there are academics who might say there’s some sort of karma going on here — like, since these home improvements expanded the home’s global footprint, the extra heat was caused by the additional global warming they created. But since as a humble handyman I’m incapable of explaining anything by invoking an existential threat to human life, I have a simpler explanation. Maybe the original contractor who installed the heating and air conditioning system couldn’t anticipate the need to heat and cool these extra spaces, and the remodelers who followed didn’t fully compensate for the difference. So what are you going to do now? The extra space has already been built, and the central air conditioning system with all its ducts and everything else is already running throughout the walls, floors, and ceilings. Is there an affordable solution? The experts might say you now need to buy carbon offset credits for your past sins. But, we have solutions, too: Ceiling Fans Sometimes a room is too hot because the cooler air in another room just isn’t making it all the way to the room that is too hot. A ceiling fan can solve this by circulating the air. Fix St Louis can add a ceiling fan to ANY room, even if there isn’t an attic above — we’d just channel through drywall to get there, then repair and paint the walls and ceiling. Non-Hoosier Air Conditioners Many homeowners don’t like those air conditioners that sit at the bottom of a window for a variety of reasons, including their downscale appearance, safety, and insulation. Today’s more elegant, Ted-Drewes-sounding solution is the “mini split”. It combines a unit installed into your interior WALL (NOT a window), connected to a small compressor on the ground outside (with the same function as the large compressor(s) used by your central air conditioning system). Fix St Louis can install these for you. Tinted Windows Nobody ever thinks of this as a solution, but you can easily TINT your windows to cut down on the excess heat and light coming in from the outside. And it looks NOTHING like tinted car windows that are black from the outside, with a thug or insecure teenager on the inside. Tinting is actually an aftermarket process, in which a film is applied to a window when it is in place. So you don’t have to get new windows or have them removed then reinstalled. Yup, Fix St Louis can handle this, too. So if you want to feel cool and comfortable in a room that’s hot-hot-hot, call the not-so-cool, but nice, hard-working, and sensible folks at Fix St Louis. We’ll get rid of your hot spots without messing with your central air. Dr Steve Fix St Louis |