The Furnace

I was recently telling a good friend about something and thought "hey... wait... this would make a GREAT blog entry" so here goes:

Last October on a Saturday afternoon I settled in for a nap on the couch. About thirty seconds later I realized just how cold it was in the house so I got up and turned the heat on for the first time of the season.

A couple minutes after I laid back down a shrieking alarm went off. As I went through the house trying to find which smoke alarm was malfunctioning I was horrified when I finally found the offending alarm. It was not a smoke alarm at all. It was our carbon monoxide detector. I unplugged it from the wall and turned the furnace off.

A half hour later I wanted to be sure so I plugged the carbon monoxide detector back in and turned the furnace back on. It wasn't long until it was blaring again. I shut the furnace down for good.

On Monday we had a repairman (who we happen to know) come out to look at it. It took him less than two minutes to find 3 or 4 things wrong with our very old furnace and then he declared it dead. We then had to go through the process of picking out a furnace and making the arrangements with our friend for his crew to come in and do the work. He wanted to do the job right. We wanted it done right too. It's an old house. It had never been done right.

Doing the job right meant installing a furnace adequate for the house and also running some new duct work. He threw in central air at no extra cost to us which has proved awesome this past summer. With excitement and smiles we told our friend "Do what you need to in order for it to be right."

A few days later I came home from work knowing they'd be there installing the new furnace. We were excited as it was growing colder and November was approaching. We live in an area where terms such as "lake effect snow" and "snow belt" MEAN something.

Anyhow, I could hear the guys working upstairs when I walked in the house. I figured they must be running that new duct work.

We only have two bedrooms in our house but since we raised all girls it was never an issue. At this time last year when this furnace was being installed our oldest hadn't lived at home for a few years. Our youngest was away at college. Our middle one?? Engaged to be married and still living under our roof.

What I found when I went upstairs into the girls' room made me lose my breath and darn near have a panic attack!! There was a perfectly round 6 or 8 inch hole in the wall. When I looked through the hole guess what I saw?

I freakin' saw MY TV on the OPPOSITE wall of my bedroom. Here they were running the duct work up into the closet of my girls' room and then putting a T shaped pipe on the top to run it into both bedrooms. Typically these type of vents would go high up toward the ceiling but for a reason that doesn't even matter had to be installed lower in our house. These vents are at eye level and ours is right over our bed.

My sex life flashed before my eyes at that moment. Spankings were rare anyhow back then... but sex? We were pretty good at being quiet.... but now being quiet wasn't even going to help. I knew though that in eight months our daughter would be getting married and moving out. If it hadn't been for that... if my girls had been small... I think we would have had to move.

THIS is why my empty nest means so much to me.

And you thought maybe I just didn't like my kids or something, huh? LOL