It’s a Wee Bit Chilly…

 I usually wake up feeling a little bit toasty. Then as the morning progresses and I eat breakfast, I start cooling down, so I turn the heat up when I get up, so that by the time I wake up it is 70 degrees, rather than 65. However, the Monday before Thanksgiving, the warmth never came. Instead, the house felt colder than when I had gotten up. I thought that strange, so I looked at the thermostat, and it looked like it was working. Luna was also not in her favorite spot in front of the bathroom heater, which is beyond strange, as that dog lives in front of the heater during the winter. See the following examples:

I checked a couple of the heater vents and they were blowing cool air, which explained the drop in heat in the house.  Perplexed, I went downstairs to check the furnace, where I found the lack of flame in the furnace slightly disturbing. After Kevin and I attempted and failed to interpret the meaning of the flashing LED on the furnace over the phone, he came home and we both decided that the furnace needed some professional help. However, the soonest a technician could look at it was the next day, so Luna and I put on our jackets and toughed it out.

I worked the next day, so I stewed throughout my shift wondering if we would get lucky and it would be an easy fix, or if it would present some difficulties. When I returned home that night, it was still cold. The circuit board had failed, but Kevin had elected to fix it himself, rather than to pay for the technician to fix it. Unfortunately, we had to wait for the part to be shipped to us. Kevin, feeling a little guilty about his desire to save money and give his wife frostbite, wrote a sob story email to the merchant, and he rushed the circuit board to us.

Fortunately, our experience was not as bad as it could have been. First of all, we were experiencing a “heat wave” during this week. The next week was downright frigid. Second, we have our own balmy tropical paradise in our basement, thanks to 1000 gallons of 80 degree water. Due to these things, the coldest it got was the mid-sixties. Third, I worked the entire Thanksgiving weekend, so I didn’t have to be at home in the cold.  Hopefully, we have a few more good years with our furnace, because I’m not looking forward to it dying again.