I will not turn on the furnace

Having spent 29 of my 32 year in the upper midwest, I am resolute that we will not need to turn on our furnace this winter. Seriously, it doesn’t get cold enough in San Diego to even turn on the pilot light. Call me cheap, but I don’t plan on firing up the furnace this winter.

For those outside of Southern California. While the San Diego climate is mild year-round, it does get noticeably cooler in fall and winter. Hardly cold, but still chilly.

If you ever visited our house in Romeo you’d know that Kristen and I like to keep the house cool. Todd and his family talk about putting on layers to come over for dinner. Of course, the joke was funnier knowing that we would actually turn the thermostat up to 70 when company came over. At night, we allowed the house to cool to 58. Understand that we lived in a 135 year old house and keeping it warm all night long would mean the furnace would literally run all night long if I tried to keep it at its day time temperature of 65. At the same time, we’ve always kept our houses at similar temperatures. Some people like a really hot house, I like a relatively cool house.

So, some things about us never change. Just like in Michigan, Kristen and I wake up and tiptoe to the kettle to warm up water for coffee or tea. Just like our house was in the mid-fifties in the mornings, the same is true of our San Diego home. But, just like in Michigan, we are thinking of cheating by installing a couple high efficiency space heaters just to keep the nip off the air.

After all, we’d feel like bad parents if the kids could see their breath when they crawled out of bed.


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2 responses to “I will not turn on the furnace”

  1. Todd Porter Avatar

    I wish we didn’t have to turn our furnace on, but it has been on for about a month and a half now. I wouldn’t mind coming to your heatless house now. 🙂

  2. Nathaniel Dame Avatar

    I’m with you!! My wife and I grew up in the midwest but are living in Texas. No need for heaters around here–it barely gets chilly. Maybe we’ll get a space heater when we have kids 😉

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