The Glamour of Home Ownership, Again

We have a new furnace!


Our furnace stopped working properly a few days before Christmas, so we have been unable to use it. Sears folks came out three times, sent us parts twice, and finally determined that it needed to be replaced.


Anyone in the area may have noticed that this not working of the furnace coincided with the coldest weather we've had since last year. This is what not having a furnace has meant to us:

Not just me, but Zirpu also, wearing sweats, hats, and socks to bed. Toward the end I started putting the heating pad in the bed.

Zirpu and I huddled in the office, the only room in our house that has doors, with the tiny space heater I bought for my office at CSUH blowing at full blast.

Seven and a half boxes of Duraflame logs.

Red wine too cold to drink.

Temps in the house consistently in the low 50s and more than once at 49*F.

Extreme crankiness on my part.


The furnace was installed on Thursday and we are luxuriating at 65*F. To get the furnace into the crawl space, the installers had to make the crawl space door bigger. That hole was repaired today.


I have a friend who lived without a furnace for eight years, and another one who didn't have one in her house until recently. I think that both these people had space heaters and didn't have to cram themselves into a 7'x10' room like Zirpu and I did. Now that I think of it, one of these friends is from Minnesota, where the men are strong, the women are beautiful, all the children are above average, and everyone is naturally hardy!


I guess we're not as strong as my friends because we're very happy about the new furnace.