Sunday, January 18, 2009

Middle of the night

Its 1 am, and I'm awake. Normally I would be asleep right now, but my house is freezing. The furnace is just running, but its down to 60 degrees inside the house. I actually tried to go to bed, but it was too cold to sleep. So, I'm here typing with fingers that are almost too cold to type. I tried to diagnose the problem myself. I changed the filter, reset the thermostat and tripped the breaker. But its still just running continuously and putting out cold air. Its supposed to get into the 20s tonight, so I put extra blankets on the girls and Bryn is wearing her beanie.

I wish I knew how to check the pilot light, but the manual didn't show how and I can't find an answer on google. That really isn't something I dare to do myself anyway - I don't feel like blowing up the house tonight. I want to wake up my husband, but he's been so unbearable today that I don't dare do anything else to make him mad. And although the furnace being broken isn't my fault, he'll still be mad at me for waking him up. So, here I sit, freezing, and unable to do anything about it. It makes me mad - I am the type of person who always wants to fix things. It drives me crazy to not be able to fix it. Why is it that the "man of the house" is sleeping peacefully, while I have been pacing for an hour worrying about how much it will cost to get a repairman out on Sunday.

I may have to drug myself to get some sleep tonight.

12 comments:

Jen said...

We had the same thing happen to us when we were still in Utah. They came on sunday night charged us $100 for weekend house call. Luckily the furnace was still under warranty. Those things are expensive. I hope its an easy fix for you guys and that you don't have to do any major repairs.

Anonymous said...

If your furnace less than about 10 years old, you probably don't actually have a pilot light anymore. They usually have some sort of electronic thing that lights the gas now... makes things a bit easier.

Ours stopped working during a -30C spell... THAT was cold, however we shut the power off, waited 5min, turned the power on again and it worked fine.

The front panel of the furnace usually has a bunch of instructions on it - see if any of those work. Otherwise... good luck!!! I hope it's not too pricey..

Corrie- said...

I have no clue about this kind of stuff. But I'm hoping that you found some unknown electric blanket somewhere and went to bed!

tiburon said...

I hope you got it fixed!!!

Anonymous said...

Bummer! In the future though, in sub zero temps etc....that is considered an emergency that you cold have called about. If you do have a pilot light that was out, you would have been able to contact the gas company possibly....but I would have called the on call guy at our heating and electric place. I am sure you toughed it out just fine and I understand the higher charges....but just wanted to share.

Brokenornot said...

Mine does that at least once a year, but it's always the pilot light, and I would be afraid to light it too. Hope you got warm.

Kristine said...

yuck! I'm so sorry! What ended up happening? Did you get any sleep?

Christie said...

Ummm - after I spent 2 hours freezing and then woke Ben up. He fixed it, but it broke again 2 days later. UGG!

Omgirl said...

Ah, Christie.....the dilemma. Freeze or wake the beast. Don't you have space heaters? We have like 15, but that's cause we live in an old drafty house.

Heather said...

That happened to us a couple years ago - just a month or so after we had our son. So I was top all the stress with crazy postpartum hormones - not pretty. Turns out it was the blower or something. We had to have it fixed on a Saturday and it cost like $250. Don't you just love unexpected expenses?! :) Hope everything works out!

Notme said...

That would be awful! We get cold if it's below 72 in our house.. I couldn't even imagine 60.

Did you ever get it fixed?

Oceanchild said...

Oh I know that feeling of not wanting to say anything or they will be "SO MAD" and it isn't even your fault. That just happened when our dryer went out.

Sorry you were so cold. Furnaces are a pain especially having to spend any money to replace them. I'm counting on ours to last at least 24 more years....(they are 20 years old)