Baby, It's Cold Inside

Add it to the list of Things That Would Only Happen in Krinkeland: We could call this The Undead Furnace. When Todd was gone earlier in the week, I began to notice the furnace did not seem to be working. By Wednesday morning, it was downright chilly in the house and the electronic readout on the thermostat said, "System malfunction, call for service." Todd got home that night, did his usual manual check and YouTube how-to search, and determined, indeed, the furnace was out. The weather has been in the 30s and 40s, and we have a gas fireplace that pumps out a lot of heat, so we were not too worried and not uncomfortable. We agreed to call a repairman in the morning.

As a lovely aside, the few friends I happened to meet and chat with that day all offered help, support, space heaters, and places to stay. Seriously, they invited me and my entire tribe to have slumber parties in their basements. And they meant it. Our friends are the best.

The repairman arrived, and he was very earnest and friendly. He had serviced our furnace one time previously; that time, it was something stupid and easily remedied and probably our fault. This time, he was downstairs for a long time. There were many trips to the truck, travails around the exterior of the house, phone calls, sighs. Essentially, he told me the furnace was fried. What he actually said was, "All kinds of junk-- weeds, pine needles-- have been sucked up into the intake and packed into the furnace and basically melted it. It's toast, and your air conditioner is in a similar condition, not far behind."

He left me with the evidence and said he would call Todd. When his bids came in, with the highest one close to $10,000, I think we both started sweating, even with the chill in the air. Todd just kept saying, "Our house is only 10 years old... this just doesn't add up..."

That evening, Todd put on his usual engineer cap, took apart the furnace again, and started ramming around. He agreed with the repairman's assessment that the furnace was packed full of junk, but he didn't agree that would be the end of the furnace. After some time and a lot of Shop-Vaccing, Todd pulled a charred mouse carcass from.The interior of the furnace. He was texting back and forth with the repairman, asking questions and getting professional advice.

Long story short: Todd cleaned out and repaired holes the mouse chewed to get into the furnace, and then relit it. He managed to not only NOT blow up himself or the rest of us but also to get the heat going again saving us thousands of dollars. The repairman came back this morning to make sure Todd had done everything safely and correctly, and to apologize for his mistake.

I am going to apologize here for often not giving my husband enough credit. What he did was amazing! (And it saved me from the urgency of trying to find work and raise funds to pay for furnace/Christmas/upcoming vacation!)

While the furnace repair was happening, this one woke up, crying and cold. I tucked him into my bed and added a layer of down, because he will always be my baby.