We had our furnace installed and working by about 5pm last night, and when we left for my Oakland East Bay Symphony concert at 7:20, it was still cranking away on full blast. (This fancy-schmancy furnace has a big burner and a little one, and two fan speeds, so that it can do little fires with slow speeds to maintain a temperature, a big fire with big speed to bring a cold house up to temperature, and everything full blast to handle really cold houses.) When we got home, it was off, and we had a toasty, comfortable house–every last room was toasty and comfy! Mind you, this may not be exciting news for most of you, but this house has always had warm rooms and cold rooms, mostly the latter.

I didn’t think it was possible to heat this house properly! All these years I’ve known I had a crappy old furnace, but I thought the real problem was all the glass, the high ceilings, the fireplace without glass doors, blah blah blah. Turns out this house heats up just fine when it has a decent furnace!

We didn’t even hear the furnace kick on this morning, but when I woke up around 8am and it was programmed to be 60 still for overnight, it was reasonably comfortable to get up and pee. When I woke back up around 10:30, and it was supposed to be 68 according to our weekend program, I lay in bed scratching Gjetost’s ears and thinking, “Gosh. It feels TOO warm in here. It’s nice and comfy under the covers, but the air on my face is too warm!” Now it’s in the 62˚ phase of the program, and it still feels toasty and comfy inside–too warm, even–but the furnace isn’t even noticeable. I don’t think it’s even kicked on since we got up.

All these years I’ve had the thermostat set to 68˚ for active times, 62˚ during the day while we’re away, and 60˚ overnight. Turns out I’ve never actually felt 68˚!

I grew up in a house that was 72˚ for most of winter (right, Mom? or 70˚?). We’re astonished to find that we both agree 68˚ is too warm, and we’ve already reprogrammed the thermostat for 66˚ during our active hours. All these years I’ve thought I’d lost my winter fat and exchanged it for plain old fat fat, but I guess it really is winter fat.

Amazing. I’m thinking we will see our gas bills go down! I should have done this years ago.

Okay, all you people who, like me, have been too cheap to replace your POS cheap old 60% AFUE furnaces that came with your house: stop dithering! Replace it now. You won’t regret it.

Ductwork gets redone on Tuesday. After that, we’ll probably have to get out our summer clothes and put away all the fleece throw blankets. I’ve already put my long johns, ragg socks, and turtlenecks in the laundry basket.