Back in September we shared that a local homeowner had been selected for the 2026 Lennox Feel The Love program, and we asked you to be patient while we kept the details quiet. We are finally able to introduce her.
Her name is Miss Lindsey, and if you have spent much time in our neighborhood, there is a good chance you already know her.
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Meet Miss Lindsey
Miss Lindsey is one of those people a community quietly runs on. She is selfless in a way that does not announce itself. She looks out for her neighbors, she is active and genuinely helpful in her church, and she has been a fixture around here for a long time.
A lot of us grew up knowing her and knowing her family. That is the part that made this one hit differently for our team. This was not a stranger on a nomination form. This is someone who has been part of the fabric of this place for decades.
Why Miss Lindsey was selected
Feel The Love exists to recognize homeowners who spend their time helping, serving, and caring for the people around them, and who now have a real need of their own. Miss Lindsey fit that from the first line of her nomination.
The need is not subtle either. The system at her home was installed in 1997. That is a gas furnace paired with air conditioning, and you can see the flue running out of the top of the furnace cabinet in the video below. It has been running for nearly thirty years in Florida heat, which says something about how it was looked after, and it is also well past the point where any system should be asked to keep going.
We know the condition of it firsthand, because we have been the ones keeping it alive. Our team has patched and repaired that system for her along the way, doing what could reasonably be done to buy it more time. At this point it is genuinely struggling, and it is not going to make it much longer.
In this climate, that is not a comfort inconvenience. Summer here is long and it is punishing, and a failure in August is a serious problem for anyone, let alone someone who has spent her life taking care of everyone else.
The moment we got to tell her
Telling her was the best part of the whole thing.
Nathan went out to see her and brought the news in person. We have both moments on video, and we would rather you watch her reaction than read our description of it.
She was gracious about it in exactly the way you would expect from someone who is used to being the one doing the helping.
What a 1997 system is still doing in 2026
It is worth pausing on that install date, because it explains a lot about why this nomination stood out.
A residential system in Florida is typically expected to last somewhere in the range of ten to fifteen years. Salt air, humidity, and a cooling season that never really ends are hard on equipment. Hers has roughly doubled that, which is a credit to how it was maintained, but it also means every component in it is running on borrowed time. A gas furnace of that vintage is unusual to still find in service down here at all, and it is well past the age at which one would normally be retired.
There are two other things worth knowing about equipment from that era. Systems built in the nineties almost universally used R-22 refrigerant, which the EPA phased out of production and import in the United States as of January 1, 2020. Servicing an R-22 system now means relying on reclaimed or stockpiled refrigerant, and the cost of that has climbed steadily. A significant leak on a system that old often ends the conversation.
The second is efficiency. A system from 1997 was built to a standard far below what is required today, so it is doing the same job while drawing considerably more power. For a homeowner on a fixed budget, that shows up every single month.
If any of that sounds familiar in your own house, our AC repair guide and our maintenance plans are both reasonable next steps before a system picks the timing for you.
What the Feel The Love program is
For anyone coming to this fresh, Feel The Love is a program run by Lennox and the LII Lennox Foundation. Every year, participating dealers across the country nominate homeowners in their own communities, and during one week in October those homeowners receive a new heating and cooling system at no cost.
Nathan walks through how it works in this one:
We wrote about the program in more detail back in the spring when nominations opened, in Family Air Experts joins Lennox Feel The Love 2026, and then in September when we announced that a local recipient had been selected.
What Lennox provides and what we donate
The split is simple. Lennox provides the new heating and cooling equipment. Family Air Experts donates the installation, the labor, the time, and the materials needed to get it in and running properly.
Nobody invoices Miss Lindsey for any of it. That is the whole point of the program.
It is worth saying that this is the same work we would do on any AC installation. Same standards, same attention to the ductwork and the details that decide whether a system actually performs. A donated install is not a lesser install. If anything our crew tends to take these more personally.
Installation Week is October 3 through 11
Feel The Love Installation Week runs October 3 through October 11, 2026. That is when the new system goes in.
Between now and then our team is handling the planning, the equipment, and the prep. When installation day comes we will be documenting it, and we will share how it went once Miss Lindsey is sitting in a cool house with a system that was not built in the nineties.
Following along
This is the third chapter in a story that started back in the spring, and there is at least one more coming. You can follow the whole series in our Feel The Love archive, or see the rest of what we support around the Treasure Coast on our community involvement page.
If your own system is getting up there in years and you would rather find out on your terms than in the middle of August, our repair or replace guide is an honest place to start, and a free estimate costs nothing.
Feel The Love is one of the ways our family-owned team gives back here at home. You can read more about the family behind Family Air Experts and how we got started in Fort Pierce.
Congratulations, Miss Lindsey. This community is lucky to have you, and we are glad we get to do this one.
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