It still sort of blows my mind all that I’ve seen take place technologically during my lifetime.
And I’m only 55 years old.
It’s been really sort of staggering just where we’ve come since I was in highschool. My highschool didn’t even had central air conditioning. There was radiant heating in the Winter and then nothing. It could get sweltering prior to school being let on for the Summer. Now, I hold an amazing computer in my hand and also use it for a phone and a camera. Then, I think about my dad. This guy grew up way down south without any sort of residential HVAC. And if you’ve ever been through one of those Summers, you’d understand just how tough that would be. I don’t live that far south and I can’t imagine what I’d do without central air conditioning much less any residential HVAC. But the heat pump has come a long way. While it’s still such a magical mixture of genius engineering and physics at it’s basic form, innovations have pushed HVAC technology. We replaced the heat pump last year and the SEER rating alone was more than three times what it was on the old one. That’s all due to advances in HVAC technology. Now, I have a smart thermostat which precisely manages that residential HVAC so the efficiency these days is simply remarkable. That saves me money as cooling a house can get expensive without great efficiency. For people like my dad, the best he could hope for was a place under the fan inside. Or maybe a great afternoon breeze and a shady spot under and oak tree. Yea, residential HVAC has come a very long way.