Old and rustic is better in theory than in practice
The nice news was that the furnace in the basement worked amazingly well, so our heating and hot water needs would be just fine
The whole reason we picked this unique home to rent was due to how old and rustic it was, then now that we are living here, I have come to realize that “old and rustic” are better in theory than in practice, and this home is too old, and it has a lot of problems I’ve never run into in any of the more homes I’ve lived in. The pipes are noisy, held together with baling wire and duct tape in various key locales. The shingles are coming off the roof in immense swatches. The insulation in the walls is nonexistent, and worst of all there is no central HVAC in this locale! My wife and I can handle most of the repairs ourselves, but we immediately called in a local air conditioner tech to examine our home and give us some advice. The heating and air conditioning tech said that she had nice news and awful news. The awful news was that this place couldn’t accommodate a full sized central heating and air conditioning system, and that even if the power grid could handle it there were easily few air ducts. The nice news was that the furnace in the basement worked amazingly well, so our heating and hot water needs would be just fine. That meant my only real complication was cooling, and she advised taking the low cost occasions and getting a portable air conditioner, or a series of them, for the house, and it was not the perfect solution to our a/c problem, but it would get the job done for a low price.