So, the craziness began last Thursday evening. Sara's usually gone Thursday evenings so I'm at home watching the kids. I had been suffering with a bad cold all week and I was anxious to get to bed that night after getting the kids to sleep. It was 9pm by the time I got all the kids situated. It seemed a little chilly in the house so I peeked at the thermostat.... 60 degrees. Hmm... so I went downstairs to check the furnace. The pilot light was out, so I fetched a candle lighter. I tried to relight it, but it wouldn't light. Our furnace is almost 30 years old so I feared that it had finally decided to die. We had a similar type thing happen several years ago, and the Centerpoint guy came out and cleaned things up to get it working again. I decided to take some things apart and do some cleaning myself before calling Centerpoint this time. I did all that I could to make sure things were clean and hooked back up properly, but I still had no luck getting the pilot going.
I called Sara at this point to let her know what's going on as this could potentially be a big problem. The weather forecast said it would get to about 10 below that night. We figured the next logical step was to call someone to diagnose our furnace. We began making phone calls to different places as we prepared ourselves for a cold night. We called Centerpoint first, but they said no one could come out until the next morning. Sara called three other places claiming to have "24 Emergency Service" and we still haven't heard back from any of them after leaving messages that night. We were beginning to lose hope at this point. We had some backup plans to stay with Sara's sister for the night to get the kids out of the cold, but we were also concerned about water pipes freezing if the house got too cold. I called our neighbor, Rob, to see if he had some firewood we could use for our fireplace. He said he did, but also asked permission to peek at our furnace. I welcomed any help that was offered.
I called Sara at this point to let her know what's going on as this could potentially be a big problem. The weather forecast said it would get to about 10 below that night. We figured the next logical step was to call someone to diagnose our furnace. We began making phone calls to different places as we prepared ourselves for a cold night. We called Centerpoint first, but they said no one could come out until the next morning. Sara called three other places claiming to have "24 Emergency Service" and we still haven't heard back from any of them after leaving messages that night. We were beginning to lose hope at this point. We had some backup plans to stay with Sara's sister for the night to get the kids out of the cold, but we were also concerned about water pipes freezing if the house got too cold. I called our neighbor, Rob, to see if he had some firewood we could use for our fireplace. He said he did, but also asked permission to peek at our furnace. I welcomed any help that was offered.
He tinkered for a while as the house temperature was nearing 50 now. At about 11pm, Rob found a loose wire that restricted the furnace from firing up. Once the wire was back in place, it started right up. It turns out that Rob actually went to school for furnace repair years ago, but decided not to pursue it as a career. I had no idea! Praise God!
The next day, Friday, Sara called me at work and said she smelled gas. She's got a pretty particular sniffer, so I trusted she knew what she was talking about. She called Centerpoint and got everyone out of the house. I left work shortly after she called me and the Centerpoint guy was already there checking stuff out by the time I got home. He couldn't find anything anywhere. I couldn't smell anything, but my cold (and my cold meds) makes my senses numb. Finally, he checked the hose to the pilot on the furnace and found two leaks. He immediately tagged it and shut the gas (and the furnace) down. No heat again! Luckily, he was able to fix the leaks and get us up and running again. 
So, just as we think the stressful situations are coming to an end, we end up in the Emergency Room on Sunday afternoon! Aubri slammed a door in Micah's face as he was crawling around and got one of his fingers caught by the hinges. There was instant crying and bleeding everywhere. The door got him right above his first knuckle of the right index finger. It literally got cut off and was hanging by a little bit of skin. I was afraid it wouldn't be able to be kept, but the doctor did a good job stitching it back on. Hopefully it heals properly, we'll find out in the next couple weeks. Poor little guy! He seems to be doing pretty good so far, although he recently started sucking his right thumb and is a little confused how he can manage that with a bandage from his hand to his forearm.
Sara and I are both a bit exhausted and overwhelmed from the craziness of the past few days. Hopefully we'll be having some less stressful and less expensive days in the near future!
2 comments:
That is unreal! Glad you were able to get the furnace running safely again. As annoying as those things are it's cool to see God provide for you in the form of your handy neighbor. Sorry to hear about Micah's fingers too - ouch!
Thinking of you guys and praying for better days ahead!
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