Rising Air
My new house (I’m told I can call it that for up to six months) doesn’t heat like I’m used to. It’s both better and not better.
I’ve got central heating and air, but that’s not it. I’ve had those before. I think actually it’s because I’ve got central heating and air but that the house wasn’t built with it, so it’s installed differently. When I’ve had central before it’s always been fed into the rooms through vents that are up near the ceiling and when I’ve not had central I’ve had wall heaters that push the heat out through six feet of vents in one central spot.
And God refuses to tell me why the distributed vents are called central heating and the vents all in one central spot are not. But I digress.
In my new house the vents are all in the floor. There’s ducting in the crawlspace to route the heated air where it wants to go and it sort of gently wafts up through the vents. It’s that gentle wafting that had me concerned. First, I’m used to the hot air blowing out of vents, rushing into the room to quickly disperse to all corners. It gives me someplace to stand when I’m cold and feel the warm breeze. It’s not as satisfying as standing in front of a wall heater and feeling the fireplace-like glow but it does let me know things are working and let’s me get a little directed warming. But this gentle wafting? I had visions of it taking hours to heat the house.
When I got home this week from a short vacation the house was down to sixty degrees. It was with some trepidation that I turned the heat back on but with surprising speed the temperature began climbing. There’s enough air flow to warm my toes, but not enough to feel anything up as high as my hands, but I guess sometimes slow and steady really does win the race.
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