So, does anyone remember this?

Hard to believe it was only a few months ago when many states were piled under by feet of snow and people were begging for mercy.  Well, here in the Tampa Bay area, we’ve had the opposite issue to contend with. Our temperatures have been pretty well above average, making April feel more like July. Well, almost everyone has it right…

This was a big oopsie from one of the local TV stations. A wintry mix at 90 degrees? What, was this April 1?

OK, so now that we have established it is getting hot, I also had to address the 800 pound gorilla in the middle of the shop – my old air conditioner had reached the end of its life.

Yup. R2D2 had gasped and wheezed through last summer, but the fan would no longer switch to high, and the unit was already woefully underpowered at 8,000 BTUs. But, I can’t complain, it served me well for nearly nine years, and it helped keep the shop tolerable where I built many summer projects which would have been impossible otherwise.

So, now we’re talking about a new system. I picked this baby up at the local home improvement center, and believe me, it’s a major improvement over what was here. First, the fan goes all the way to high. Kinda like a guitar amplifier that goes to 11…

Just like the previous model, this one displays the current room temperature, but the new one displays it in big numbers on the front, making it easy to see the current temp across the room. It’s the small things in life that make me excited.

Oh, did I mention that this is a 12,000 BTU unit?  That’s going to help get the garage just a little cooler during the heat of the long Florida summers.

Of course, my trusty old box fan will be helping with the cooling duties, circulating the cool air through the shop while I work. That will certainly help things, but I have a feeling that sometime in the not to distant future, I am going to have to install some type of garage door insulation kit to help keep some of the heat out of the shop and the cool inside.

With that, I hope that I can affect a positive climate change in my garage for the summer woodworking season.