This morning we woke up to a cold house and a bad electrical smell. The blower motor was stalling and eventually shut the furnace down completely. The bad smell was the motor as it was trying to restart itself. My husband called the furnace repair company at 6 and left a message. We must've been the first to call in this morning, as just after 8 AM the repair guy knocked on our front door.
While the repair guy was working on our furnace, we did our best to stay warm, using 2 1/2 space heaters, the electric fireplace in the living room (that serves as a heat source), and the stove in the kitchen. I got the cast iron griddle going and made a batch of no-egg pancakes and a small pot of brown sugar syrup. I also kept a kettle of water heating instead of using the microwave to heat tea water. Between the griddle, the syrup heating, and the tea kettle, the kitchen wasn't too bad.
I said we have 2 1/2 space heaters. The 1/2 heater is a small desktop heater. We used that to keep a bathroom warm. The other 2 portable electric heaters kept the downstairs warm enough, while their heat rose toward the upstairs bedrooms.
This is perhaps one of the worst weeks of the year to have the furnace go out on us. The lows are in the 20s overnight and highs are in the 30s. Homes in this area are not as well insulated as homes in regions that routinely have very cold winter weather. So the house cools down very quickly.
The repair guy worked for close to two hours. He has it barely working again, with the warning that it won't last more than a couple of days. It needs a new blower motor, which is a factory-ordered part and would take 60 days to receive, not to mention its very hefty price tag. Our furnace is old and has a few other issues that will fail sooner rather than later. It sounds like the cost of all of these repairs would just about equal the cost of a new furnace.
So, the furnace sales person will be out in the morning to advise us on what would work for our house that can be installed as soon as possible.
If you're keeping track, this has been a very expensive year for my family, new roof, new car, laundry and oven repairs, my dental/medical bills, and now a new furnace. We'd been saving for a new furnace for several years. So this is something we're prepared for. We could have splurged on many luxuries along the way -- taken extravagant vacations, gone out to eat in nice restaurants, bought chic new clothing for ourselves, and/or driven the latest and greatest cars. Instead, for all of these 38 years, we've prioritized saving for rainy days. And the rainy days all came in just over a year's time. It took my husband and I all of 5 seconds to say yes to replacing the furnace.
Having the necessary funds to cover our emergencies is about the best worldly luxury we could have.
There's no escaping rainy days. They happen to all of us. Having an umbrella and boots at the ready makes the rainstorm a little less stressful.
