(no subject)
Aug. 18th, 2021 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[fairly mild cw: illness, poverty, aging, death]
Had the first visit of the first energy-efficiency program.
The auditor gave us eighteen LED lightbulbs, a clothes-drying rack, and a power strip that [shuts off if its items haven't been used in a while, in order to reduce phantom power usage]. He is not the final authority on appliances and can't promise anything, but he *suspects* the program will offer to replace our supplemental air conditioner (from 2002) and both of our standalone freezers (1993 and god-only-knows, respectively), but not our fridge (2007). He also gave us a recommendation to clear out the plant growth around our central air conditioner, to avoid obstructing the intake.
---
Has it always been common for Canadian repairfolk to wear shoe covers, or is that just a COVID thing? The auditor took his shoe covers off for the basement and outdoor portions, and it occurs to me that it has been a long time since we had any repairfolk in that weren't working on something in one of those two areas.
(...hmm, maybe if *I* bring shoe covers to people's homes, they won't force me to swear not to leave abruptly.)
---
Certainly, he was overall trying to violate the sanctity of our home as little as he could under the circumstances. Shoe covers, double-bagged well-fitted surgical mask, disinfecting the counter after he set his tablet on it. Indeed, the tablet itself was clearly a disease-prevention measure: can't really rub paper down with an alcohol wipe.
---
I was pleasantly surprised that he actually *engaged* with me. A couple of times, when Dad was off fetching something or closing doors behind us and the auditor had a question about the house, he even went ahead and asked *me* rather than waiting for Dad to get back.
It's always been my experience that house-related people laser in on the de jure homeowner. *Sometimes* they'll interact with the homeowner's spouse, but they've always ignored the kid, even when "the kid" is 27 and the closest thing the household has to a breadwinner. (Although I *am* frequently *mistaken* for a minor, which can't be helping. A stable appearance does have its downsides.)
(I did not explicitly introduce myself as the household's chief of finance, but that was the capacity in which I was there. (Indeed, signing up for this program was my idea.) I suppose he may have picked up something along those lines from the fact that--having been asked to minimise the number of people in the house during the inspection--we'd sent *Mom* out to sit in the car reading a book, but not me.)
Perhaps it being my idea helped me give off the correct vibes. Perhaps it's impossible to look 13 when you're wearing a construction respirator.
---
I had actually been worried that a respirator would *encourage* them to leave me out of the discussion by making it more difficult to understand me, and had seriously considered wearing a cloth mask for the occasion. What I decided on was wearing my respirator + carrying around a clipboard on which to write anything I failed to communicate through speech. I didn't end up having to use it.
Also, uh, I'm kind of concerned by the implications of our initial exchange when I first opened the front door to let him in:
Auditor: *asks for Dad by name*
Me: "He's upstairs. Not sure what he's doing."
Dad: *walks to the top of the stairs and starts putting on a surgical mask, in a manner indicative of "I went upstairs to get a mask"*
Auditor: *clearly relieved*
While this may simply be "oh good, I don't have to chase him down to get things started", I worry that it may suggest the auditor often has trouble getting residents to mask up.
---
While I'm glad he considered me enough of an involved adult to engage with, I found it disturbing just how much I still don't know about the house's workings. Eighteen lightbulbs! One of them was a mistake--the bulb it replaced turned out to *also* be an LED, just one that took its job as an incandescent replacement very seriously--but still, we had *seventeen* incandescent lightbulbs installed after all this time. Some of them were in places I didn't even know we had *any* lights. Who knew there were lights in the death-trap room? Well, apparently Dad did.
I have been *trying* to maneuver things into a position where my parents can gracefully hand things off to me as needed, but it seems we still fail the bus test.
---
Actually, no, it *was* eighteen incandescent lightbulbs. One of them was a weird shape and the auditor didn't have any suitable replacements on hand for it, so we left it in. We almost never use the bathroom's ceiling light (preferring the lights over the sink), plus all 250 watts will funge against the electric space heater we also have in there. As such, relative to the possibilities on offer, running that light is only actually wasteful in the summer.
Had the first visit of the first energy-efficiency program.
The auditor gave us eighteen LED lightbulbs, a clothes-drying rack, and a power strip that [shuts off if its items haven't been used in a while, in order to reduce phantom power usage]. He is not the final authority on appliances and can't promise anything, but he *suspects* the program will offer to replace our supplemental air conditioner (from 2002) and both of our standalone freezers (1993 and god-only-knows, respectively), but not our fridge (2007). He also gave us a recommendation to clear out the plant growth around our central air conditioner, to avoid obstructing the intake.
---
Has it always been common for Canadian repairfolk to wear shoe covers, or is that just a COVID thing? The auditor took his shoe covers off for the basement and outdoor portions, and it occurs to me that it has been a long time since we had any repairfolk in that weren't working on something in one of those two areas.
(...hmm, maybe if *I* bring shoe covers to people's homes, they won't force me to swear not to leave abruptly.)
---
Certainly, he was overall trying to violate the sanctity of our home as little as he could under the circumstances. Shoe covers, double-bagged well-fitted surgical mask, disinfecting the counter after he set his tablet on it. Indeed, the tablet itself was clearly a disease-prevention measure: can't really rub paper down with an alcohol wipe.
---
I was pleasantly surprised that he actually *engaged* with me. A couple of times, when Dad was off fetching something or closing doors behind us and the auditor had a question about the house, he even went ahead and asked *me* rather than waiting for Dad to get back.
It's always been my experience that house-related people laser in on the de jure homeowner. *Sometimes* they'll interact with the homeowner's spouse, but they've always ignored the kid, even when "the kid" is 27 and the closest thing the household has to a breadwinner. (Although I *am* frequently *mistaken* for a minor, which can't be helping. A stable appearance does have its downsides.)
(I did not explicitly introduce myself as the household's chief of finance, but that was the capacity in which I was there. (Indeed, signing up for this program was my idea.) I suppose he may have picked up something along those lines from the fact that--having been asked to minimise the number of people in the house during the inspection--we'd sent *Mom* out to sit in the car reading a book, but not me.)
Perhaps it being my idea helped me give off the correct vibes. Perhaps it's impossible to look 13 when you're wearing a construction respirator.
---
I had actually been worried that a respirator would *encourage* them to leave me out of the discussion by making it more difficult to understand me, and had seriously considered wearing a cloth mask for the occasion. What I decided on was wearing my respirator + carrying around a clipboard on which to write anything I failed to communicate through speech. I didn't end up having to use it.
Also, uh, I'm kind of concerned by the implications of our initial exchange when I first opened the front door to let him in:
Auditor: *asks for Dad by name*
Me: "He's upstairs. Not sure what he's doing."
Dad: *walks to the top of the stairs and starts putting on a surgical mask, in a manner indicative of "I went upstairs to get a mask"*
Auditor: *clearly relieved*
While this may simply be "oh good, I don't have to chase him down to get things started", I worry that it may suggest the auditor often has trouble getting residents to mask up.
---
While I'm glad he considered me enough of an involved adult to engage with, I found it disturbing just how much I still don't know about the house's workings. Eighteen lightbulbs! One of them was a mistake--the bulb it replaced turned out to *also* be an LED, just one that took its job as an incandescent replacement very seriously--but still, we had *seventeen* incandescent lightbulbs installed after all this time. Some of them were in places I didn't even know we had *any* lights. Who knew there were lights in the death-trap room? Well, apparently Dad did.
I have been *trying* to maneuver things into a position where my parents can gracefully hand things off to me as needed, but it seems we still fail the bus test.
---
Actually, no, it *was* eighteen incandescent lightbulbs. One of them was a weird shape and the auditor didn't have any suitable replacements on hand for it, so we left it in. We almost never use the bathroom's ceiling light (preferring the lights over the sink), plus all 250 watts will funge against the electric space heater we also have in there. As such, relative to the possibilities on offer, running that light is only actually wasteful in the summer.
