The furnace disappears every winter.
I never know what it is. Some switches or some gauges. I'm not an expert on HVAC. All I know is that my wife asks, “Is someone else cold?” And she lets me know that the thermostat is reading 64 degrees, just as I realized I was actually feeling the cold.
I spent about two hours in the corner of an old basement next to a fan of the spider web and windows. Remove the small tube. Use my wife's hair dryer to dry small drops.
It always happens at the worst. I don't know why, but that's true. When it's a little chilly, it's not November. It's not April that I'm warming up in the spring.
In mid-February, there was 2 feet of snow on the ground, 13 degrees a day and 2 degrees lower at night. The furnace always disappears during the coldest time of the year.
The history of failure
I remember it was out for a year for a few weeks. They sent the man a few days after we called. He installed a temporary switch, but it came out pretty quickly. They too had forgotten to order a permanent one. It would then take another 7 days to get here.
By the time they finally returned to repair the furnace, we were all very used to space heaters. We almost forgot what it was like to have a normal, heated home. “Wow, this is pretty good,” we all said.
Last week, like clockwork, the furnace was decided to go out again. After 5pm, 14th in February, so no one is going to fix it until tomorrow. “Nice,” my resigned father (me) exhaled as he went down the stairs and looked at the cold furnace.
DIY dad
When the man was here to fix it the last time he explained the problem. Condensation of some tubes. Moisture accumulation forces shutoff. He showed me how to fix it if it happened again. So I sat by the furnace, put my headlamp around my forehead, messing around with this, trying to get rid of the little black tube without damaging anything else.
I spent about two hours in the corner of an old basement next to a fan of the spider web and windows. Remove the small tube. Use my wife's hair dryer to dry small drops.
Reconnect it. I run upstairs to get my thermostat back in while my wife and kids eat dinner. Go back downstairs and put the furnace back. Wait for the blower to kick in and hope it stays at this time.
The process was repeated at least 15 times. Over and over again. A small drop of condensation came out of that tiny black tube. Surprisingly, it worked, as I was about to give up. The furnace was fixed.
It's always something
It's always something. That's the truth. If you haven't done enough yet, something else will be thrown into the mix. If you're not stressed enough yet, there are some other issues.
Of course, the furnace is not that big of a deal. Yes, it's frozen here in the north, but it's not life-threatening when you go out. It's very annoying. Another thing we want is to take care of when everything is all we want to go right.
That's life. We just want everything to be right, but in reality it never works. There's always something. The furnace that always disappears at the worst possible time is a phor and reminder.
You can't control everything. We cannot predict it, and we cannot fix it forever. I know the furnace is coming out again. Maybe in a month. Maybe in two months. Maybe in a year. But what I know is that I will go out again someday. All I can do is wait and then reach the corner of the musty basement and try to fix it again when it stops working.
Fuel for reflection
It sounds interesting, but I think the usual issues that make a furnace come out are really good opportunities for reflection. They are small hidden lessons in life. An opportunity to open up and consider bigger questions. How do we respond when things go wrong? Do we try to deny them? Or do you point them straight up? Do we rely on someone else? And sometimes we rely on ourselves? What do we do?
You can clean up some problems under the rug. Other people, we can't. That's what the furnace is. That's what snow you need to shovel at 6am. That's what makes one toilet in the house not working. That's what the flat tires on the way to dinner. They are small problems, but they have to be solved. They simply cannot be ignored.
Things aren't going well. They do that all the time. Sometimes it's a big thing, sometimes it's a little thing. For some reason, they always seem to be wrong at the worst moment. At the end of the day, it's up to us to decide how we'll deal with the issue when it finally comes.
This applies to small issues with furnaces and toilets. And that applies to big questions as well. Something tough without a good answer.
