In the trades, we call a dirty outdoor unit a “Fur Coat.” It may look fuzzy, but it’s suffocating your heat pump. During the pandemic, I got hooked on rug-cleaning videos—the same thrill I get when stripping away years of dirt from a clogged system. So I implore you—nay, beg you—don’t wait until the first frost to find out your heat pump is struggling under a fur coat.

During the pandemic, I was just trying to hold it together—for my kids, for myself. We started hatching eggs in a homemade incubator. When that failed, we brought home day-old chicks and built a coop from scratch. One chicken, Chipmunk, survived every disaster. Until she didn’t.