I’m dealing with the return of my insomnia again…but it gives me a chance to walk downstairs and see just how cold it’s getting.

The high-tech furnace I put in several years ago works as a complete computer controlled system with the outside air conditioner compressor also acting as an outdoor temperature sensor.  The furnace box inside (which is tiny compared to the one it replaced) has an onboard computer that monitors indoor and outdoor temperature and tries to maintain indoor conditions as efficiently as possible.  The burners can work at full blast or several stages below that.  The blower fan is variable speed.  So instead of the old system, where an indoor thermostat tripped at the temperature you set it to, turning on a furnace that only knew how to burn gas and blow out hot air at full blast until the thermostat tripped back off, this one will respond to temperature changes both inside and outside the house, and gently try to maintain the indoor set point with as little effort as possible.  This is the first time since I’ve had it, that the temperatures have gone into single digits here in Baltimore.

The thermostat looks like an oversized iPod Classic, but without the wheel.  It sits on a wall in the living room and among other things, tells me both the indoor and outdoor temperatures.  I get the outdoor reading now far more accurately then the old porch thermometer I once had and I don’t have to look out the back window.  Right now the thermostat is telling me it’s 6 degrees outside.  I’m pretty sure that’s Fahrenheit and not Kelvin because the nitrogen in the atmosphere isn’t condensing on the ground.  At least…I think that frost I’m seeing outside is water ice and not nitrogen…

For the first time since I bought Casa del Garrett the second floor is warmer then the first at night.  That’s what you’d expect since heat rises but it’s never been like that in the winter and now I know that darn bathroom skylite has been letting all my heat out all these years.  I honestly didn’t think it was that bad, but the change has been dramatic.  Especially with the temperature down in the single digits out there.  I’m going to leave that plastic sheet I put under it up for the rest of the season and when it gets warm enough that I can set up my table saw I’m going to buy some sheet acrylic and cut some panels to put up there permanently. 

Wow…  I just now checked NOAA and they’re saying it’s 4 degrees at BWI right now.  My thermostat is still reading 6, but I’ll bet it’s still dropping out there.  Two more hours until morning…