My husband Bob and I have lived our whole lives way up north.
For most of the year, the local area experiences severe cold, feet of snow and brutal wind chill.
Temperatures down to twenty below zero are not unusual. Our house is outfitted with a furnace that runs at max capacity month after month. Our monthly heating bills are always a concern. There’s no need to invest in central air conditioning. We spent almost thirty years in the north, shoveling snow, scraping ice and being stuck inside due to the weather. We got very tired of it and decided to buy a second home in a warmer location where we could spend the winters. It didn’t take long to realize that houses are much different in the south. We toured quite a few houses and none of them included basements or insulated windows. Most of the structures were constructed of cement blocks and the lawns mainly sand. The house we chose is surrounded by palm trees. The biggest difference between our two houses is the way we handle temperature control. Our house in the south is equipped with a packaged unit that is located outside, exposed to the elements. The single unit provides both heating and cooling. It easily handles the excessive heat and humidity over the long summer months. In heating mode, the system is effective until the outside temperature drops below freezing. Fortunately, we rarely experience that severity of cold. We now stay in our southern home from early November until sometime in May. Then we head north to get away from the humidity and enjoy the milder climate.