June 30, 2008

Married to an Engineer

I find it humorous when my married friends tell me about how their husbands try to fix things around the house... and ultimately they have to call a professional. You know what I'm talking about.

Well, on that note, our home was built in the 1930s and up until now no one has put an air conditioner in it. You may think that one wouldn't need A/C in Colorado... but that's not so true. It gets very very hot here because the sun is so intense that it really heats up the house. It gets up to the 80s in the daytime. Okay, I may have gotten a little pampered living in this great weather (and yes, I love the dryness of this state) - but the 80s is just too hot to be comfortable in when you're trying to relax at home. I've had friends in the same situation and they actually go to the movies or shopping just to be in a cool place for a few hours. Too funny... and kind of sad actually.

Thankfully we have an attic fan which pretty much sucks the cool air from outside (can only be done in the evenings and early mornings) and takes out all the hot air. Great invention - very cheap - but we needed something to really cool down our home and not just blow semi-cold air inside.

Well, here comes my wonderful husband with a funky blue spongy square and he completely wets it, sows it to our window screen and turns on the attic fan and wha-la - we have nice cold air coming in our home. But oh no, he was not done then. He nails wooden supports to our home, gets a random bucket and buys a pump at a garage sale.

The water that is pumped through the spongy square makes the air cool and it gets sucked into our home for a nice pleasant temperature. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but that's really all you need to know. Ahhhhh - cool air at last! All for only $9 instead of $250 for the official kind - Chris wanted me to mention that. HA!! :-)

See it for yourself - not so pretty, but it does the job.

Kinda quirky, huh? Despite the embarrassment of this device hanging from our window, I can say I married quite the inventive man. And for this I can say that I am proud of having married an engineer. My hero.

2 comments:

Joy said...

women prefer "looks" over function, which is why we buy cute shoes that hurt when we wear them. However, men don't care what it looks like as long as it does the job! at my parent's house my old room had tin foil on the window to keep the sun from heating up my room. It looked stupid from the backyard view but it worked. The funny thing is, that piece of foil has been there for about 13 years now and I doubt my dad will ever try something different because it works.

ORLCS YALL said...

Ummm...it kind of looks like a urinal. But I'm glad it works. Colin is going to be so jealous when I show him your blog. Maybe we'll move to Denver next year! This 100 degree weather is crazy!