DOING MY PART TO WARM THE GLOBE

Over the weekend we bought an air conditioner for the living room. Generally, I’m anti-air conditioning units. The ice cold air blowing out of them feels eerily unnatural, and you just know how horrible it is for the environment. Plus it makes my throat dry.

We’ve kept a window-A/C in the bedroom the last few summers because though I’ve tried, I’ve found it impossible to sleep without one during the months of July and August. It’s just too hot.

But the thought of spending the summer inside my apartment has forced me to swallow my anti-A/C rhetoric and pony up for a Freon-spewing beast for the living room, too.

Before heading to P.C. Richards to sell out, we measured our living room to determine how many BTUs we’d need in our new A/C. I was somewhat shocked to learn that our living room is maybe 250 square feet. It feels much larger than that to me.

We measured the rest of the apartment, and it’d be generous to call it 400 square feet total. I guess the fact that my first bedroom in Manhattan was around 80 square feet has skewed my perception of what constitutes a large room.

At any rate, here’s a handy square footage to BTU conversion chart for anyone looking to buy an A/C this summer:

100 to 150 square feet = 5,000 BTUs
150 to 250 square feet = 6,000 BTUs
250 to 300 square feet = 7,000 BTUs
300 to 350 square feet = 8,000 BTUs
350 to 400 square feet = 9,000 BTUs
400 to 450 square feet = 10,000 BTUs
450 to 550 square feet = 12,000 BTUs
550 to 700 square feet = 14,000 BTUs
700 to 1,000 square feet = 18,000 BTUs
1,000 to 1,400 square feet = 24,000 BTUs

And if you're planning to buy an A/C, do it now. They are super cheap. We got this 10,000 BTU A/C for only $250. I’m sure that on the first hot day of the summer, prices will double.

Days until surgery: 13