Well, last week was an interesting one in the Hartland for a variety of reasons, but I'll only bore you with one of them. Last Monday, I awoke and went downstairs only to be greeted by the lovely smell of gas in my house. After a temporary moment of confusion due to the fact that all of my in-house appliances are electric, I realized that the darn fireplace we never use is gas! (Please don't judge me. After watching TWO neighbors' apartments burn down in the middle of the night in Huntington Beach back in 2001 due to a faulty gas fireplace, I vowed I would never use one again. I'm sure you'd think the same way if this had happened to you,too). After peaking inside the fireplace and discovering that the ever-burning, blue, pilot light had gone out, I found the cause of my stinky family room and the source of many problems to come. Long story short, I had to have my energy/gas company come out and turn off the gas, pay a professional to come and cap the gas valve on our fireplace (thus making my arch nemesis defunct for eternity), and then have the energy/gas company return that same day to turn the gas back on. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.
Upon examining our twenty-one year old furnace after turning on the gas, the Puget Sound Energy technician determined that it was unsafe to use, past the point of no return, and CONDEMNED it! Say what? Yes, condemned. Prior to this moment in my life, I only thought that abandoned buildings in NYC where homeless people live were condemned. Apparently not. Anywho, after getting over the initial shock, I flippantly declared, "You have the power to do THAT?!" He turned to me with a vindictive, oh-I've-already-won look and said very dryly, "I have the power to keep you safe." That was it. Game over. My king was killed and I lost. So, with that said, he unhooked and capped our furnace and left my family and me to freeze the night away. And, the next, and the next, and the next....and so on.
Since my husband is still unavailable for anything nonprofessional for two more months (he's almost done!), the responsibility to fix this blasted problem fell 100% on my shoulders. So, nine days, five bids, AND several thousand dollars later, a shiny, brand new, Trane furnace was installed today. Our chilly 57 degree house finally got warmed up again, along with its inhabitants. I couldn't be happier...
The ancient and grumpy beast in its post-condemned state.
The new and shiny one all ready for take-off!
I am so sorry! On the bright side we now have matching furnaces :-) We had to replace ours (the old one) a couple of years ago when it went kaput. I love how these things happen when funds are low and yet you can't not do it. Hopefully your gas bill will be extra low this month.
ReplyDeleteHoly Cow! Now that is what I call a MAJOR BUMMER!!!!! Hey, have you ever looked into appliance insurance? We had it when we owned the townhouse and we definitely got our money's worth! Regardless, I'm glad you are all now toasty warm again. And I'm also glad you only have two months to go..... yeah!
ReplyDeleteI hope that there was a faint whistling wind and a tumbleweed blowing past when the John Wayne of appliances made his, "I have the power to keep you safe," decree. And please tell me he tipped his hat when he said it.
ReplyDeleteWow, are you freezing there? It was 93 degrees yesterday here, we've had our air on. So sorry about your gas! Actually Amy and thad just had their whole heating/cooling go out (their house is pretty old) and they had to pay almost 10K to redo it! Lame!
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