Heat!

Once upon a time, Hubby and I bought a house. Generally, it was a good house, but it needed a few repairs. We worked on those all summer long, and got all sorts of good things accomplished.

Then, the cold weather hit. Technically, we had a furnace. Technically, it would warm up the house. Unfortunately, we didn't dare turn it on because in the basement, where the furnace was, the previous tenants had kept little chicks -that's right, baby chickens- down there with a bunch of other trash, and all sorts of nastiness had gotten pumped into the vents. Plus, we didn't know the condition of the furnace, and figured it would be wise to get it tuned up before turning it on for the winter.

So, we found some coupons for a $49 tune-up with Any Hour (fantastic company, btw!) and settled in to wait a week to be warm. We tried to stay warm by bundling up, baking, taking long showers, and huddling next to the space heater. It worked... sortof.

Monday was the blessed day of the tune-up. Unfortunately, the technician had an emergency and couldn't come when he said he would. They tried to reschedule me for a different day. I put my foot down. I explained the chicken dust/crap/nastiness situation and insisted they come that day. He finally showed up at 5:30.

After a few minutes down in the basement, he called us down and explained the situation. As expected, it was dire.

The furnace, if it had been well taken-care-of, would have lasted about 15 years. It was 17 years old and had not been given the TLC it so craved. Poor furnace. Poor, poor, disgusting furnace. Oh, and by the way, there were several things that were illegal about how it had been installed.

Long story short, if we had tried to get it repaired, it probably would have cost us several hundred dollars, plus the $300-400 it would have cost on top of that to get the ducts cleaned out. Or, we could buy a whole new furnace that would work for 15-20 years, get the ducts cleaned out for free, have a 10 year warranty, and only spend $4000. (Yucky price, but hey, there's financing! And rebates! And tax credits! So really, we are only going to end up spending about half the final cost when all is said and done... not too bad, really.)

Yesterday was the big day. The guy showed up at 8:30, worked until noon, came back after lunch, brought two other guys with him, ended up charging us an extra $900, stayed until 7:00, and now we have a blessedly warm house. Seriously. I was too hot last night, and right now I have bare feet. It's glorious.

Oh, and don't worry about the extra $900... we sortof opted for that. There were a couple of things he couldn't see until he moved the old furnace out, and they needed to be moved in order to put the coil in that will allow us to put in A/C later. They would have needed to be moved later, anyway, and this way we'll save $500 later on. So, that was $300. Also, it turns out the old furnace was attached to several other electrical circuits throughout the house, and leaving it like that could very easily lead to shorts that would damage our pretty new furnace. So, the electrician came and one hour and $600 later, we have a new switch in our electrical panel that leads only to the furnace.

And really, I'm able to say all this with peace in my heart and a great big smile on my face, because I'm warm. I'm warm, and Schprid is warm, and Wooble will be warm, and Hubby will be warm (not that he's ever got a problem with being cold) and we'll all live warmly ever after until 20 years down the road, or we move away from this house. And life is good.