Looking Out: Daylight Saving Time adds to problems of the Evil Thermostat – The Daily Telegram

I am no fan of Daylight Saving Time, I say into the phone. If people want to go to bed later or get up earlier, or if businesses want to change their hours during the summer, let them do it, but leave the clocks alone.

Why do you feel that way? says my ever-patient, beloved wife, Marsha, who is off visiting our kids and grandkids.

Just common sense, I say. That and the Evil Thermostat.

Oh, that! says Marsha, knowing exactly what I am talking about.

The Evil Thermostat lives in our bathroom. A couple of years ago, we had a new tile floor installed. Marsha does not like to be cold. I do not like to be hot. Our bathroom has a register in it, so the furnace does a good job of keeping it warm. I was happy.

Getting a new tile floor required compromise, and that compromise meant that it WOULD have electric radiant heating. Period.

This added considerably to the cost of the new tile floor, as the floor people had more work to do; our wonderful electricians, Gus and Mike, had to add circuits and other mysterious stuff; and of course there was the cost of the grid itself, carefully laid beneath the tiles.

The system came with its own thermostat. We can program the floor to be warm for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. It is very nice for Marshas always-cold feet. Simple.

Indeed. Simple, if it were not for the Evil Thermostat.

1. The buttons are itsy bitsy.

2. The icons and legends describing the functions of said buttons are itsier and bitsier.

3. The manual that tells how to use the thing is teeny weensy.

4. The font of the print in said manual is teensier and weensier.

5. The directions, once photographed, enlarged and examined are non-intuitive. Indecipherable.

I obtained the phone number of the American company that imports the German thermostat and heating grid systems. When changes are needed say, upon travelling and needing to turn the system on and off a nice lady named Judy leads me through the steps to reprogram the thing.

This is not the end of the troubles, however.

Seeing our electric bill rocket upward after getting our new radiant floor, it occurs to me that since we normally keep the bathroom door open when not in use, the electric floor is trying to heat our whole house two hours every day.

Marsha, we need to keep that door closed all the time, I announce.

Right, she says.

We are human. We forget to close the door. The electric meter spins like a top.

No problem: While Marsha is out of town visiting our kids and grandkids, I install a pneumatic door closer. The door is now closed 100% of the time and the electric meter is back to normal. Success.

Then along comes Daylight Saving Time. I have to change the clock on The Evil Thermostat. I call Judy so she can lead me through the button-finding-and-pushing process.

Problem No. 1: With the bathroom door closed, I cant get a cellphone signal. No Judy, no program. Fortunately, Judy is patient as I leave the bathroom, get an instruction point, go back in, push a button, go back out, get another instruction point

Future Problem No. 2: Marsha, upon return, will have to learn to lean backward at a 30-degree angle to overcome the power of the pneumatic door closer.

Jim Whitehouse lives in Albion.

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Looking Out: Daylight Saving Time adds to problems of the Evil Thermostat - The Daily Telegram