Furnace Fiasco

Why do things seem to fail in the middle of the night, on the weekend, or when someone is out of town?  Murphy's Law in action.  We had our a/c stop working in the middle of a hot and sweaty night in Connecticut.  Another time our a/c went out on a Sunday - again on a hot and sweaty day.  Well as luck would have it our furnace stopped working in the middle of a freezing cold night (really, there was an arctic front that week and it was 20 degF colder than normal... 11 degF that night).  

I was working on the computer and noticed my hands were cold and stiff.  I thought it was cause I keep the vent closed in the office so I went downstairs to watch StudioC before bed (that show makes me happy).  This was like 10pm.  I decided to check all the locks on the doors before watching TV - I usually check them right before I go to bed - this was a tender mercy!  I checked the back door, noticed the twirls had removed the plastic door stopper from the sliding glass door tracks, and I bent down to put it back into place.  When I picked it up my hand was over our kitchen air vent and I felt cold air blowing up at me.  What?!?  I went and checked our thermostat.  It was 69 degF and I had it set to 72 degF.  I went downstairs to check the furnace.  Sure enough - no flame inside.  I went through all the diagnostic instructions on the label.  I called Jake who unfortunately was on a business trip that week (Murphy's Law).  He googled things, I tried more stuff.  I called my dad just in case we were both missing something simple.  I flipped circuit breakers, tried to relight pilot lights, made sure the gas was running, etc.  My dad had a great idea to crank up our fireplace - which wasn't even turned on for the season.  So I got that going to add heat into the house.  Finally after all the troubleshooting we could do - I called a 24 hour HVAC guy at Americool (Ed).

Ed asked if I wanted to wait til the morning, but I don't think it's worth saving a few bucks when I am responsible for so many fragile little people (and mostly cause I didn't want to have to deal with moving them all down to the fireplace then try and get everyone to sleep all night).  So Ed showed up an hour later.  I was a little nervous about having a strange man over in the middle of the night, so I told him that my husband had an early shift the next day and had to go to bed (so he thought Jake was upstairs).  And the entire time he was at my house, my mom called me every half hour to make sure I wasn't duct taped to a chair in the basement.  :-)

I felt like the technician was honest and informative.  He explained all my options to me and the pros/cons of each.  His information matched everything I've read online.  We had 2 limit switches that went bad.  He was able to replace the fan limit switch that night and bypass the roll out limit.  There are 4 fail safes, so bypassing one was still safe.  The draft motor was going bad and he suspected that the motor was overheating and flipping the limit switches.  It also caused a rattling sound we would hear in our vents at night.  He wasn't sure how long the new limit switch would last, but at least it would get us some heat in the house.  It lasted all night!  Another tender mercy!  I scheduled them to come the next day to replace the unit.  To get the furnace back up and running would cost ~$1000 parts and labor, but that may or may not get us through the winter and once the heat exchanger goes bad you have to replace the whole unit (that's when you get carbon monoxide leaks).  So it just made sense to replace the whole unit now.  He said he wouldn't charge me for the service call that evening since I was having to buy a new furnace, which I thought was nice - especially since it was so late and so cold.  He left around 1:30 or 2am.  I think the coldest our house got was 65 degF.  None of the girls even woke up - another tender mercy! 

The next day we had planned a playdate with some friends.  I told them what was going on and we moved the activity to my house.  The installers came around noon so I cranked up the heat all morning so we wouldn't get too cold during the install.  I think the 2 young guys who showed up to install the furnace were shocked at all the little kids running around.  One of them told me "I see a new kid every time I come upstairs!"  haha!  We had 8 kids ages 4 and younger plus 4 adults, 2 of which were pregnant (NOT ME) - it was craziness!

One of the pregnant ladies was 9 months along.  Her last name is Furness.  I told her that I only wanted one Furnace/Furness delivered in my house that day.  walkawalkawalka!

It took the installers SIX hours to put this all together.  Our house was a little cold toward the end, by then it was just me and my girls so we sat on the couch by the fireplace and watched a movie.  

We upgraded to a 2 stage 80% efficiency furnace - it kicks on at 50,000 BTU and only moves up to the normal 100,000 BTU on really cold days.  The gas savings are really noticeable in a cold climate like Michigan.  And it's quieter!  

We also added a 5 inch air filter - something an asthmatic needs!  They turned the furnace around so it's easier to access, moved the power switch, blocked off the vent in that room (wasted heat), reran the PVC pipe, and installed our new wifi controlled touchscreen thermostat.  I was really happy with the quality of their work.  And Scarlett really liked taking water and fruit snacks to "the worker guys" (turns out they both have little kids so they're used to eating fruit snacks!)

It's funny how I was saving up for LASEK all year then we spent more than that in one unexpected evening.  Aw, the joys of home-ownership!  I'm glad I got my LASEK first, otherwise I think I would have postponed it.  And I'm loving my new vision!  

I was joking with Jake that on Christmas Day we should crank up the heat and sit on the air vents while wearing baggy shirts.  So we get to really enjoy our special gift!  Too bad Santa doesn't make furnaces in his workshop!  I joke, but seriously a warm house is a wonderful blessing and I'm so grateful that we were able to stay warm during the whole process.  It could have been really awful.  Even though it was inconvenient I saw the Lord watching over us many times that night.

The next day I woke up feeling totally miserable.  I think the stress and lack of sleep turned a little cold into a full blown illness.  Then on top of everything there was a snowstorm that morning AND I realized we were out of milk AND I found a bunch of scribbles on my wall from the previous crazy day.  That's Muphy's Law again folks!  Luckily, even though we are far from our family, we have an amazing group of friends in our ward.  I asked if anyone was braving the storm and going to the store that day.  A few hours later Rachel F. showed up at my door with 2 gallons of milk.  Truly a life saver!  That evening I went to put away our trash cans and I saw that my next door neighbor, Don, had shoveled our driveway and sidewalks - plus he brought our cans up to the garage.  We are truely blessed by the wonderful people in our lives!  And don't worry about my walls (I know you were stressing).  I hate that color anyways.  Just more motivation to paint it this winter.