Furnace menace
So some of you know that I fell in love with a house sometime in August and we decided to buy it before selling the home we were living in at the moment. So our old house has been on sale since more or less September 2006 but because of the real-estate downturn it hasn't been quite as easy selling it as I originally thought it would be. Combine that with the apartment we still own in PR and we're in quite a bit of debt (hence the reference about needing to sell stuff on eBay to be able to afford my bachelorette party weekend in Miami this weekend!). Not even the supposedly fool-proof St. Joseph house-selling kit that my friend Tom recommended has been able to do the trick.
Anyhoo, we recently re-listed our home with a new real estate agent when we got back form vacation in Peru. So far we've had a few leads so that's encouraging. This last weekened there was an open house from 2-4 PM on Sunday, after which our real estate agent calls us to say "You might want to have your furnace checked, it's not turning on or doing anything else. It's pretty much dead. There were some people interested in the house and they're coming back to see it on Wednesday so you may want it to be a little warmer than the 40 degrees it's at right now". OK so that wasn't verbatim but it was pretty much the gist of it. Great, we thought. Just our luck that some people show up who are interested and it's 40 degrees inside the house!
Given that my husband is no handy-man (when he hung up with the realtor he turns around to ask me "what's a furnace?"), we called the heating company first thing Monday morning. My husband, the eternal pessimist, goes: "this is going to cost us and arm and a leg, and we can't afford this". I said can we please wait until they show up before the ugly pessimist rears its head????
When the furnace guys shows up, he stared at the furnace for approximately 0.5 seconds, he turns to look at a switch immediately to the right of the furnance, flips on the switch, and goes "this is why it wouldn't be working". Of course given I was a woman he sort of didn't outright laugh in my face. But I was like, I swear this wasn't me! My husband and I came and checked it last night. We didn't know there was a switch right next to it that someone had turned off! I looked like the idiot that I have truly come to believe I am, at least when it comes to home-related things. He proceeded to nicely write on the switch -- FURNACE SWITCH, PLEASE DO NOT TURN OFF -- and charged me a measly $60 for the visit.
Chalk that one up to experience! Another reason why we shouldn't be living in a cold weather place...Oh, and I guess I'm thankful that it wasn't the furnace in our current house that's not working, or the AC at the apartment in Puerto Rico for that matter, since I hear it's been up to 105 degrees lately.
Anyhoo, we recently re-listed our home with a new real estate agent when we got back form vacation in Peru. So far we've had a few leads so that's encouraging. This last weekened there was an open house from 2-4 PM on Sunday, after which our real estate agent calls us to say "You might want to have your furnace checked, it's not turning on or doing anything else. It's pretty much dead. There were some people interested in the house and they're coming back to see it on Wednesday so you may want it to be a little warmer than the 40 degrees it's at right now". OK so that wasn't verbatim but it was pretty much the gist of it. Great, we thought. Just our luck that some people show up who are interested and it's 40 degrees inside the house!
Given that my husband is no handy-man (when he hung up with the realtor he turns around to ask me "what's a furnace?"), we called the heating company first thing Monday morning. My husband, the eternal pessimist, goes: "this is going to cost us and arm and a leg, and we can't afford this". I said can we please wait until they show up before the ugly pessimist rears its head????
When the furnace guys shows up, he stared at the furnace for approximately 0.5 seconds, he turns to look at a switch immediately to the right of the furnance, flips on the switch, and goes "this is why it wouldn't be working". Of course given I was a woman he sort of didn't outright laugh in my face. But I was like, I swear this wasn't me! My husband and I came and checked it last night. We didn't know there was a switch right next to it that someone had turned off! I looked like the idiot that I have truly come to believe I am, at least when it comes to home-related things. He proceeded to nicely write on the switch -- FURNACE SWITCH, PLEASE DO NOT TURN OFF -- and charged me a measly $60 for the visit.
Chalk that one up to experience! Another reason why we shouldn't be living in a cold weather place...Oh, and I guess I'm thankful that it wasn't the furnace in our current house that's not working, or the AC at the apartment in Puerto Rico for that matter, since I hear it's been up to 105 degrees lately.
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