The Long Goodbye: Letting Go of Air Conditioning
New York City is no stranger to warm Autumns. We had some unusually humid weather over the last few weeks, but it was chilly again by Sunday. How’s a firm to know when to shut off the AC? Here at FGX, we suffered through half of the summer with a humongous air conditioning system that is built into the infrastructure of the building. The building’s AC system is composed of a long, tunnel-like air shaft running across the ceiling of the entire office and gigantic compressors on each floor. The shaftway has large vents which allow the air to escape. The whole bulky system is louder than the city streets and colder than the Rockefeller ice rink in December.
We’re a tightly knit team and we didn’t appreciate being drowned out by the rumbling din of an AC monster, nor could we get used to the idea of running this industrial sized mega-AC when all it did was turn our team into FGX icicles.
AC is only fun when you can actually gauge the temperature for comfort, and hear yourself think.
Removing the entire industrial unit was not an option because it’s an integral part of the building we operate out of. We finally decided to purchase Energy Star certified units on our own and let the old AC unit retire into silence. Sweet, sweet silence. But it seems like it’s time to retire the Energy Star models as well.
It was pretty chilly when I left work last night. By the time I went to bed it was even more so. When I woke up this morning I realized it was time to turn on the heat. Fuel crisis or not, I simply cannot blog with frigid fingers. The cold snap is now in full-effect; evidenced by the amount of people I spied in their winter coats on the way to work this morning. To that end, we have officially shut off our air conditioning for the winter.
No matter when you choose to shut off the AC, we encourage you to use Energy Star certified products. I asked Teddy to pull our electric bills from last summer. He compared the bills online and found that First Global Xpress has saved a significant amount of money by using the new, energy efficient cooling system. Not only did we save a chunk of cash, but we’re able to control the temperature more precisely, run the dehumidifier separately from the AC function on cooler but humid days, and we can talk each other’s ears off because the new cooling system is as quiet as our fake mouse, Roger.
It feels great knowing we made the smart decision. We saved energy, money and managed to avoid the laryngitis that screaming over the rumbling AC was sure to cause. Now if I could only figure out where the heat comes from in here …
Tags: energy conservation
