So this week I'm cat sitting. It has been fun but yesterday I walked into the house to find it at 97 degrees (Fahrenheit). So I made a mad rush to turn off the heat, open windows and put out fans. Luckily there are enough to have two in each animal room. Even the lizard and snake looked unhappy with the heat, the poor cats were sprawled across the floors looking miserable.
I managed to get the cat room cooled down quickly and as walked into the living room I noticed the smaller fish tank cloudy, the pump died due to the heat. All inside were found dead, I won't go into details but I think you know what happened.
The small animals got lucky and each got their own fan that I placed on top of their cages so they could lay under it. Even with windows open the temp in the house wasn't dropping. Luckily help arrived and had fantastic timing! One of the kid's who's parent's I'm house sitting for has a friend who is going to school for HVAC and he stopped by to drop something off! Yay! So I practically dragged him inside, from the looks of it the battery in the thermostat was dying and wasn't giving off enough power, it signaled for the heat to go on but couldn't tell the furnace to turn off. So overnight it got hotter and hotter and hotter until I got there Thursday. We put fresh batteries in and I stayed the night to make sure all the animals were safe in the heat. By 2am it was finally down to 78 degrees. Which hurts considering it was 10am Thursday when I turned the heat off at 97 degrees and it took till 2am to cool down, with windows open and fans going all day.
When I left this morning the heat was working properly, the cats seemed happy as were the reptiles. There are two pregnant cats, I'm watching them like a hawk since they are due next week and who knows if the heat might have stressed them enough to cause them to go into labor early. Not what I need.
So lesson from this week: Check your batteries in your thermostat and don't use rechargables, they don't do well in them since overtime their power doesn't last as long after several charges and cause weaker signals.
I managed to get the cat room cooled down quickly and as walked into the living room I noticed the smaller fish tank cloudy, the pump died due to the heat. All inside were found dead, I won't go into details but I think you know what happened.
The small animals got lucky and each got their own fan that I placed on top of their cages so they could lay under it. Even with windows open the temp in the house wasn't dropping. Luckily help arrived and had fantastic timing! One of the kid's who's parent's I'm house sitting for has a friend who is going to school for HVAC and he stopped by to drop something off! Yay! So I practically dragged him inside, from the looks of it the battery in the thermostat was dying and wasn't giving off enough power, it signaled for the heat to go on but couldn't tell the furnace to turn off. So overnight it got hotter and hotter and hotter until I got there Thursday. We put fresh batteries in and I stayed the night to make sure all the animals were safe in the heat. By 2am it was finally down to 78 degrees. Which hurts considering it was 10am Thursday when I turned the heat off at 97 degrees and it took till 2am to cool down, with windows open and fans going all day.
When I left this morning the heat was working properly, the cats seemed happy as were the reptiles. There are two pregnant cats, I'm watching them like a hawk since they are due next week and who knows if the heat might have stressed them enough to cause them to go into labor early. Not what I need.
So lesson from this week: Check your batteries in your thermostat and don't use rechargables, they don't do well in them since overtime their power doesn't last as long after several charges and cause weaker signals.
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