Progress?

Not all progress is good.

Today I had a new furnace installed. It is about half the size of the old furnace and far more efficient. Over time, it will certainly pay for itself. So our utility bill will be lower, I have greater peace of mind because I won’t worry losing heat in the middle of a blizzard, and the installation went smoothly. Perfect, right?

Not exactly. A new programmable thermostat came with the furnace, so this was also installed. I like my old thermostat. I had misgivings when I was given a 24 page instruction booklet for the new thermostat. 24 pages! I don’t think I even had an instruction booklet for my old thermostat. I didn’t need one because there were only three switches – one to turn the fan on or have it come on automatically; a second one to activate the furnace or air conditioner; and a third to change the temperature setting. These three switches did everything I wanted and the thermostat was intuitive and simple to use.

With the new thermostat there are all kinds of settings … time, date, temperature settings for morning, day and night, more settings for weekdays and weekends, a setting to override the programmed settings (either temporarily or permanently) and allow manual adjustments, system settings to allow the temperature to control the furnace or air conditioner, a recovery mode indicator (whatever that means), a low battery indicator, and probably more.

I haven’t figured out how to use this new thermostat. I’m not sure I want to. I’m not even sure I can. I want my old thermostat back.