Batteries
This entry was posted on 10/26/2011 8:44 AM and is filed under blather.
The other day our thermostat began blinking it's 'Low battery' warning. We were out of batteries so I did nothing at first but as I was falling asleep that night, I thought "what if I couldn't find any batteries? Our furnace would stop working, all because we switched out our simple, easy to use, low tech dial thermostat a few years ago for a fancy pants, stupid ass high tech computerized thermostat that was supposed to be energy efficient."
'Energy efficient' is how they get you but here's how it actually works; it saves energy because you can program it to cool down when you don't need it to be warm. For instance, the default settings on the new fancy thermostat were programmed to allow the house to cool down to 65 during the day, when it is assumed that everyone was at school or work.
Apparently the thermostat has never heard of stay at home moms, home schoolers, retired people or those of us who work at home.
I can't paint when it's 65 degrees in the house. So I had to reprogram the thermostat.
Ha ha!!
That's the sound of 'i know best' thermostat laughing at my attempts at reprogramming.
Twice now, I've followed the directions point by point and while I have gotten the evil little device to allow me to warm my house up to 70 while I'm here working, I can't convince it to cool down at night. More than once, I've awakened to 74 degrees in the middle of the night.
How is this energy efficient? Oh, yeah...It isn't!
How is this easier than turning the dial to 65 when I go to bed and turning it back up to 70 when I get up? IT ISN'T.
We fell for the marketing strategy that wants us to believe that high tech is better than low tech.
Think compact florescent light bulbs vs. incandescent; a complete waste of time, money and [gasp!] energy. Or consider the amount of time and money that the space program spent trying to come up with a writing ustensil that worked in zero gravity. After years of research and millions of dollars they realized the pencil already existed. Your tax dollars at work.
And now we're stuck in the reality that if we ever find ourselves without double A batteries, we have no heat.
But batteries are cheap and easy to come by! you say.
Really.
I went to Target and bought a multipack of Energizers.
They're double A, same as the batteries I replaced and yet...
when I put the new batteries in the thermostat, the display stayed blank.
I took the new batteries out and tested them in a nearby battery operated appliance; they worked just fine. I put them back in the thermostat. Nothing. I took them out and tried another pair from the new pack. Nothing.
I did what I always do in these situations; I called Jay and made it his problem instead of mine.
As usual, he solved it.
He came home, stared at the new batteries in the thermostat and said "Does it look to you like these batteries aren't touching?"
I looked. It did kinda look that way.
I looked at the batteries I'd replaced. They were everready, not energizer. I compared them to the energizers. I couldn't see any difference in size or shape but when I put the old back in, the thermostat lit right up.
so now I have a 20pack of energizer AA batteries that don't fit in my thermostat.
I have to go get more everreadys.
How weird is that?
What if the new pack of everreadys don't fit, either?
What then, mr. high tech, you know best stupid ass energy efficient thermostat??
I miss the old, easy, always did exactly what I wanted it to, dial thermostat.
