furnace

It’s been pretty chilly here, 30s and 20s. We have an old house, built before such modern contrivances as insulation or central heat and air, and our systems are very much a kluge. The air conditioners are temperamental and Sean has to baby them all summer. They reward us by giving us marginally cooler air and exorbitant electric bills.

In winter we have the two furnaces to cozen along. The upstairs unit that heats our bedrooms is pretty decent and has given us little trouble, but the basement furnace is a prima donna that works when it feels like it. Our basement is a horrible place, full of cave spiders, moldy dank darkness and grues. Sean is understandably reluctant to venture there, but will if he has to.

“But Fee,” you are thinking. “Don’t you rent?”

Yes, yes we do. However the plumbing caused our landlord so damn much expense in November that we are loath to bother him. In the past we have had furnace repairmen out, they have tinkered with the contraption, gotten it to work, and left. Then three days later we have a warm spell of 40s and it doesn’t run for twelve hours… or ever again. Repeat.

We had been pretending that winter didn’t really exist but when the temperature downstairs hit 55F even Sean admitted that it was a bit cold. So this year we gave up on the basement furnace and got two little portable radiators for the downstairs. It’s just the living room that gets really cold; the kitchen cookstove heats the kitchen and dining room nicely.

Anyway, my point is, it is a toasty, reliable, 70 degrees in here now. Aaah.

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2 thoughts on “furnace

  1. I’ve gotten so used to the coldness in here that I think I’m cooking alive anywhere its above 60. I did run a heater a couple of hours through the day the other day when we woke to 16 degrees outside.
    Our central unit hasn’t worked since we moved in so we bought the round ceramic heaters on the metal stands at walmart…I think they run around 40.00 but work good.
    Tht and we vented the dryer into the house.

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