The Case of the Flaming Furnace
In an effort to get up to speed on this new blog, I am going to try to post more often. Like every other day or so. We'll see how that goes, LOL!
For the moment, however, I need to backtrack to Thanksgiving weekend and tell you what all happened, and how I came to be grateful for our new furnace....
Thanksgiving weekend started out fantastically this year. I had to "work" on Wednesday the 24th (I say work, but I mean web-surf), and management let us all leave at 2 pm, with pay. Yippee!
Tim and I had plans for the four days ahead of us--we were going to paint a wall in our living room. Specifically, the wall where the wallpaper was falling down due to humidity and toddler handiwork. Wednesday night Tim spackled all the joints and holes, and we cleared the way for the project to begin. Stuff was moved to the middle of the living room, and every-which-way. The only glitch was that the picture tube in our "good" TV blew out, and it needed to be taken to the store for service.
Thursday morning watched an hour or so of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on TV, and then we went to KMart to do a wee bit of shopping. It was the only place open and surprisingly wasn't too busy. Then in the evening, we met up with friends and relatives at a local restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. This is the second year we've gone out to eat for Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, it makes a world of difference in my moderately dysfunctional family's mood. Less stress for all of us, especially since none of us enjoys the art of cooking.
Friday and Saturday are a bit of a whirlwind. They include such things as sanding the wall, priming the wall, a family bowling outing, a pizza lunch, going to pick out an entertainment center (our Christmas present from my parents), and blissful naptimes. I am very grateful for all of my family members (well, most of the time), and all of the blessings we enjoy, such as food, housing, and employment.
Sunday was when everything began to fall apart. Literally. The day was going to be "painting day." And believe it or not, we did actually get the painting done. Very proud of this, as the one wall now looks great. The plan is to put our new entertainment center there, along with much more stuff on the bookshelves in the new center. We needed to go out Sunday morning to pick up a few necessities at Walmart and drop off the dead TV at the electronics store, so we left our house about 10 am.
When we arrived home about 2 hours later, I entered the kitchen and was struck with a horrid burning smell. Crap. "This cannot be good," I thought. We scoured the house looking for what might be causing the odor. This was a little difficult, as the house smelled like paint and primer to start with. Hard to locate a new odor under that. We finally determined that it must be coming from the furnace, and a call was placed to an HVAC contractor. They showed up a short while later, and confirmed that it was our furnace causing the stench. Not only that, but apparently while we were out, the furnace was "shooting flames" out the front of it (!?) and thus melted all of the wiring to the furnace itself. This is what caused the smell. Needless to say, as person that struggles with the kind of OCD where I have to keep checking electronics/switches/etc. for fear of fire, this was absolutely devastating to me. I have hardly been able to sleep since then.
Monday would be spent making phone calls to schedule HVAC contractors to give us an estimate on a new (and improved with safety features that have evolved in the last 25 years since our furnace was made!!). We dragged our sorry butts out of bed Monday morning, trying to get our resolve up to this task. And wouldn't you just know it, the coffee maker decides to bite the dust right then. Little b***ard. Thank god we have about 4 others, so that I could at least try to start the day off *right*. We learned that a new propane furnace was going to run us about $2000, regardless of who we chose to do the work. And that we were going to have to wait a few days to get it installed. This is not news to be taken likely, since we live near Rochester, NY, snowiest city in the US. (Local joke: you know you're from Rochester when "You define summer as three months of bad sledding.") We also have three kids, and live in a mobile home, not the most heat-efficient building ever constructed.
"What on earth did you do?!" Well, in the end, everything has worked out as well as it can, I guess. We finagled with the quickest company to get them to price-match the cheapest company, and thus got our furnace mostly installed yesterday, Tuesday. They are supposed to return and finish up the chimney and duct work today (as of 3pm, however, they hadn't shown up yet....).
Through the unpleasantness of the past week, I been made aware of how thankful I am to have my wonderful family, and all our "things." I have learned precisely how much I appreciate a safe, working furnace, television, and coffee maker. Oddly, I can't think of a better weekend to have all this happen on.
For the moment, however, I need to backtrack to Thanksgiving weekend and tell you what all happened, and how I came to be grateful for our new furnace....
Thanksgiving weekend started out fantastically this year. I had to "work" on Wednesday the 24th (I say work, but I mean web-surf), and management let us all leave at 2 pm, with pay. Yippee!
Tim and I had plans for the four days ahead of us--we were going to paint a wall in our living room. Specifically, the wall where the wallpaper was falling down due to humidity and toddler handiwork. Wednesday night Tim spackled all the joints and holes, and we cleared the way for the project to begin. Stuff was moved to the middle of the living room, and every-which-way. The only glitch was that the picture tube in our "good" TV blew out, and it needed to be taken to the store for service.
Thursday morning watched an hour or so of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on TV, and then we went to KMart to do a wee bit of shopping. It was the only place open and surprisingly wasn't too busy. Then in the evening, we met up with friends and relatives at a local restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. This is the second year we've gone out to eat for Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, it makes a world of difference in my moderately dysfunctional family's mood. Less stress for all of us, especially since none of us enjoys the art of cooking.
Friday and Saturday are a bit of a whirlwind. They include such things as sanding the wall, priming the wall, a family bowling outing, a pizza lunch, going to pick out an entertainment center (our Christmas present from my parents), and blissful naptimes. I am very grateful for all of my family members (well, most of the time), and all of the blessings we enjoy, such as food, housing, and employment.
Sunday was when everything began to fall apart. Literally. The day was going to be "painting day." And believe it or not, we did actually get the painting done. Very proud of this, as the one wall now looks great. The plan is to put our new entertainment center there, along with much more stuff on the bookshelves in the new center. We needed to go out Sunday morning to pick up a few necessities at Walmart and drop off the dead TV at the electronics store, so we left our house about 10 am.
When we arrived home about 2 hours later, I entered the kitchen and was struck with a horrid burning smell. Crap. "This cannot be good," I thought. We scoured the house looking for what might be causing the odor. This was a little difficult, as the house smelled like paint and primer to start with. Hard to locate a new odor under that. We finally determined that it must be coming from the furnace, and a call was placed to an HVAC contractor. They showed up a short while later, and confirmed that it was our furnace causing the stench. Not only that, but apparently while we were out, the furnace was "shooting flames" out the front of it (!?) and thus melted all of the wiring to the furnace itself. This is what caused the smell. Needless to say, as person that struggles with the kind of OCD where I have to keep checking electronics/switches/etc. for fear of fire, this was absolutely devastating to me. I have hardly been able to sleep since then.
Monday would be spent making phone calls to schedule HVAC contractors to give us an estimate on a new (and improved with safety features that have evolved in the last 25 years since our furnace was made!!). We dragged our sorry butts out of bed Monday morning, trying to get our resolve up to this task. And wouldn't you just know it, the coffee maker decides to bite the dust right then. Little b***ard. Thank god we have about 4 others, so that I could at least try to start the day off *right*. We learned that a new propane furnace was going to run us about $2000, regardless of who we chose to do the work. And that we were going to have to wait a few days to get it installed. This is not news to be taken likely, since we live near Rochester, NY, snowiest city in the US. (Local joke: you know you're from Rochester when "You define summer as three months of bad sledding.") We also have three kids, and live in a mobile home, not the most heat-efficient building ever constructed.
"What on earth did you do?!" Well, in the end, everything has worked out as well as it can, I guess. We finagled with the quickest company to get them to price-match the cheapest company, and thus got our furnace mostly installed yesterday, Tuesday. They are supposed to return and finish up the chimney and duct work today (as of 3pm, however, they hadn't shown up yet....).
Through the unpleasantness of the past week, I been made aware of how thankful I am to have my wonderful family, and all our "things." I have learned precisely how much I appreciate a safe, working furnace, television, and coffee maker. Oddly, I can't think of a better weekend to have all this happen on.
posted by Michelle at 2:47 PM
1 Comments:
What a week! I'm glad that everything is okay now. :)
I like the new look!
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