Woke up this morning wondering why there were icicles forming on my nose. A quick assessment of the situation revealed several pieces of important information:
1. The furnace was ON but only COLD air was coming out
2. It was -14 C (6 F) outside
3. It was just below 5 C (40 F) INSIDE
4. My feet were rather cold by the time items 1-3 had been discovered
So clearly the furnace was malfunctioning, and at a very inconvenient time of the year. Luckily, Jane was away visiting friends in Barrie, so only the cats and I had to suffer. I pulled out the three electric space heaters we have and placed them strategically near the kitchen and washroom areas, i.e. where all the plumbing is that might soon freeze and burst.
Once I actually found someone who still services OIL furnaces....I only had a four to five hour wait until they could make it out to Wheatley. Clearly I was working from home today, as my body heat may very well end up being the differences between the pipes freezing or not. Thankfully, I'm a warm person.
:)
The space heaters plugged away, battling valiantly against the encroaching cold. For good measure, I hugged each pipe for one full minute, at twenty minute intervals, to keep them from freezing. Just kidding, but I did actually run the water every so often just to make sure. After all, if it's only 5 C inside the house, and -14 C outside....there's a good possibility it may be below freezing in our uninsulated crawlspace where all the pipes reside.
I went outside to shovel out the crawlspace entrance that I knew the service guy would need access to....and for once it didn't seem that cold outside. Then I waited...
Long story short, service guy had to replace the ignitor and nozzle - meaning $500 later we have heat again, which is good because Jane should be home soon....and even better because it's supposed to go down to well below -20 C tonight. Not even my personal warmth could save the pipes from that. Money well spent, I figure....after all, buddy spent two hours laying on his back on the frozen clay in our crawlspace.
It begs the question - why do we have a beer fridge?
But at least we have heat again. Maybe now the cats will stop giving me dirty looks.
BLUE = inside RED = outside
...and that's AFTER a few hours of running the space heaters
The cheery fake fireplace doing the best it can
Angel of the Oil Gods (yes, I mean Georges H. and W. Bush)
"The Hatch" to the narrow and damp crawlspace
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3 comments:
the beer fridge exists because the beers would explode if left in the crawl space
and then the oil guy would suffer serious cuts from crawling into the crawl space
and then you'd be out of beer and heat and have a dead body under your house and come spring, it would stink to high heaven
or at least to the floorboards
mostly you'd be outta beer
You have clearly never tried my homebrew...it does NOT freeze...
:)
well then
Is that an offer?
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