Well, that's the end of a really 'orrible day. A distressing day, a very worrying day.
It started a little past midnight, just about 24 hours ago and sort of carried on from there. I got very little sleep last night, what sleep I did get was in fits and starts. And because it's cold, the cats were getting on each other's, and my, nerves. It's cold in the house because the main heater packed in; we can't get it fixed until the spring. So with it being about 10F (-12C) outside, and with my closet (for instance) having a fairly direct path to the outside through a poorly fitting "access panel", and the attic door that's not at all insulated, it's frigid inside as well. But none of that compares with the bad news from England. Sorry, I'm not sharing it - it's all family related. Suffice to say it's very distressing and deeply worrying.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow will be better. (There's no "I guess we'll plod on" around here!)
But, oy - this is not a day I'll ever want to repeat or review.
Carolyn Ann
Sorry to hear about the furnace, but I'm confused as to why it can't be repaired until spring. If I had to contend with those cold temperatures and mine wasn't working, I'd be moving heaven and earth to get it fixed.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very expensive part, Angel. It's part of the control valve mechanism. :-(
DeleteI tried the heaven and earth thing, but the controller-thingie needs replacing and it's just far too expensive for us right now. Jury rigging it out of the way is either impractical or dangerous - it's involved in the flow of gas, so I have to be very careful. (I've already had one gas-powered fire, on a water heater, I really don't want another!)
It's nippy, but I've got heat in a couple of rooms, and an electric heater that struggles a bit in this frigidity. Nothing that will heat the entire house, but I can make do. I have to! I will, quite frankly, be glad to see the back of this house.
Do you mean something like this?
Delete(Not this exact model, but something similar?)
No, it's not that. It's a specialized unit for a fireplace; it's not a furnace; we don't have central heating or air, but we do have central "it's really cold in here" :-\
Delete(Don't ask how we ended up buying a house without central air, etc. It was near the top of our priority list and simply got forgotten. And when we tried to get geothermal air/heat installed, the salesman screwed it all up by continually turning up drunk. And then it just never got done... Let's put it this way: Never Again.)
The bit we need costs over $200 and takes a few weeks to get; the manufacturer won't ship to the customer - it has to go through a fireplace store that sells their products. We have one of those that's not too far away, but not the required pennies. I've had to negotiate with various people in order to get permission to install it myself; considering the dealer doesn't want to come out this far and no one else is available, just getting someone to repair the unit has been a challenge. Once we have the necessaries, the piece will be ordered, fetched and installed. And it'll be summer so we won't need it.
One of those "I wish it were so simple" things, basically. When things go wrong in this house, it's never simple, or cheap; it's always a three-act play. C'est la vie, etc.
(But thanks! :-) )
Wow, that must be a very old house, to be heated by a fireplace. Yes, a controller for a fireplace would be a bit different. Now I understand your predicament!
DeleteOne a somewhat similar note... when I was much younger, I had a pot-head friend who lived in a mobile home. He came up with the novel (in his mind) idea of converting his furnace from gas to electric, using some heating elements he got from work (he did maintenance work at a motel). He installed the elements in the plenum and wired it all up. It worked... somewhat. He went through the roof when he received an electric bill for nearly $1000... for just one month.
It's just over 21 years old! For some reason, the previous owners never did fit a furnace and, like I said, we didn't get to it and then forgot. The fireplace is a propane thing that I installed after I fired the plumber who was supposed to install it. Being propane based makes it all the harder to get parts, because there are some differences to natural gas systems. It's a lot harder to get propane systems than natural gas ones, and as a result, the parts are harder to come by as well.
DeleteBecause the fireplace is in the "breakfast room" (it's a spare room in the middle of the house, opening out to the deck), it can heat an astonishingly large amount of house for not a lot of money. That's partly why we never got around to installing a central heating and air system - the need stopped being urgent (!) and then we ran into 2010 and 11 and all of the uncertainty we had around then. (It was quite a dreadful time, fiscally speaking.)
The piece is one of those "a little bits that requires you to buy the entire assembly" things. Like a headlight assembly for a car - you need a $7 bulb, but have to buy a $140 assembly because that's the way the stupid thing was built. I need a sparking mechanism, but have to buy an entire control system instead - just to get the spark that ignites the propane.
The house did have some electric baseboard heaters, which allegedly worked. I took a look at them and, deciding they were more of a danger than a help, ripped out most of the wiring for them. But we did find out the previous owners had huge electric bills as well!