Last July, I had a major update to my HVAC system, getting a whole new unit and a sparkly new thermostat.  I was sort of excited about the thermostat because it was programmable.  However, at the time, my ex and I were working opposite shifts and so I never had the opportunity to exploit the scheduling features.

Well, as circumstances changed a while ago, I only recently decided to revisit these scheduled temperature changes.  I actually wouldn’t have thought much about it if it wasn’t for the cats.  The cats were enjoying hanging out on the patio in the middle of the day and it’s like 90 degrees outside.  While I watched them bake, I was reminded that cats internal body temperature is higher than humans and how an average house temperature is actually really cold for them.  That’s why they’re always looking to curl up in warm places, like sunbeams and beds and laps.

I thought, I guess I could raise the house temp a little for them, and realized, I can do it every day while I’m not around.  That’s why I have this programmable device.  And while I thought the idea was novel, I also questioned whether it would really work.  To me, it didn’t seem like anyone would really be fooled by this scheme.  Sure, you let you house temp rise all day and save the money with the AC not running, but them you have to cool it all back down, so your AC runs hard to bring it back down.  Shouldn’t it be cheaper to maintain than to binge and purge?

I set my thermostat to let the house warm to 79 degrees while I was at work and return it to 74 for the time I would be at home, which includes all day Saturday and Sunday.  After a full month of this, I was able to use my electric company’s data tools to actually see if this was a noticeable improvement.  This is how last month looked.

The significance of the rising and falling isn’t anything, but the peaks are.  Every peak happens on a weekend, when the AC is keeping the house at 74 all day.  The only other major contributor to my energy usage would be laundry day, which actually varies, so it’s not really identifiable in the graph.

While that seems interesting for a month’s timeframe, if we zoom out to 14 month’s worth of data, you can see some other things of note.

Here, you can definitely see when I replaced my HVAC unit.  The electrical usage dropped right away.  Of course we get into fall and winter, so things are light at that time.  But you can see last month, I had a decent amount of tier 3 usage (which costs more).  This month, in the first graph, I haven’t hit tier 3 yet, so I’m definitely ahead of the game.

Since the cats actually seem to like the warmer house, I think I may bump the day temp to maybe 84.  The only issue that causes is that my office and my master closet stay hot for quite a while, since there’s no AC vents there.  But, I can manage to deal with that if I’m saving a lot of electricity.  I keep a budget of $350/mo for electric, because that’s actually what it used to be in the summer.  But this year, I’m averaging about half that.  That’s how to promote conservation, make it pay.

This is Grover.

Grover, a gopher tortoise, chose my property to build on.  He’s dug two burrows that I know of.  Grover’s name is a portmanteau of “ground rover” and has no affiliation with Sesame Street.  Anyway, he’s an asshole.  If he’s not hiding from you, he’s hissing at you.  Let me tell his story.

The screen on my screened-in pool enclosure on my house was getting a bit shabby.  The roof had a hole in it, the spline was falling out of multiple panels, and finally, a panel fell out because of the missing spline.  So I made an appointment to get it all replaced.

A couple days before the company came to give me a quote, I walked around the patio.  In the back was a large hole.  What the fuck.  Because my GF is knowledgeable in such things nature, I knew what this was.  It was a gopher tortoise burrow.  If this were the GF’s blog, she would insert at least five paragraphs here on the importance of gopher tortoises in nature.  And I’d heard it all before, so I understood what needed done.

Gopher tortoises are a protected species.  Don’t fuck with them.  Knowing this, I called a wildlife trapper (not a pest removal company) and asked him if he could take care of my unnamed-as-of-yet problem.  He told me that I needed to contact a trapper who was specially licensed to trap gopher tortoises, of which there were few in my state.  That’s something I didn’t know yet.

I found a licensed trapper and called him up.  Trapping was no big deal.  It would cost probably around $300.  Sure, no problem, let’s do it.  But there’s other issues.  You can’t just take the tortoise and drop him off in the woods.  Anyone could do that, right?  Gopher tortoises have a strong homing instinct.  There’s a better than good chance he’ll just show up again and reclaim his burrow.  Also, to rehome a gopher tortoise properly, you have to grant them enough land to claim as their own, without other competing tortoises.  And they like to roam.  So, what’s that mean?  Finding a new home for the asshole would cost me $3000.  Plus the trapping fee. Plus no guarantee he wouldn’t come back.

So, asshole got a name.  He lives there now.

Back now to my total screen replacement.  The crew arrives and I point out the very obvious burrow right next to the patio wall.  I tell them this is a gopher tortoise burrow.  It is a protected species.  Don’t fuck with it.  Everything went swimmingly well with the screen replacement.  They called me one day and said they were all done and cleaned up.  After work that day, I got home and saw that they really cleaned up.  They filled in Grover’s burrow.  What the fuck, indeed.

Of course, I immediately broke the opening up again, even though I’m pretty sure he could have burrowed back out on his own.  That’s what they do, right?  And by the next day, Grover the asshole had made his entrance even bigger than before, probably out of spite.  Did I mention this illegal activity to the screening company?  Yes I did.

Grover’s been there for years since.  For our Hurricane Irma lockdown party, we put out a bunch of watermelon for him, which was gnawed down to the rind in short order. 

He’s an asshole, but he’s part of the property now.  These bastards live 40-60 years.  He’s going to outlive me for sure.