Answer me this, why does it seem that every device that is responsible for the heating and cooling of your home always seems to fail at the most inopportune time?

Take your furnace, for instance, say around 12:45 on a Wednesday morning in the middle of February, when the actual air temperature outside is zero, with a wind chill of -10 below.

Welcome to my house this morning. I get up around 12:40 to let out a dog that's been crossing all four legs for nearly an hour, only to discover, hey, it's starting to feel a lot like outside, inside my house. This can't be good.

I quickly check the thermostat, to discover it's 61 degrees in here, that explains why my teeth are chattering.

Now the great debate begins, what to do. Tough it out till morning, or bite the bullet and call the emergency number of our favorite HVAC company.

After a 3 to 1 vote in my home, one of my dogs didn't seem to mind the cold all that much, she voted no, in an effort to keep sleeping. Anyway, majority rules, so we made the dreaded call.

Enter Teresa, the friendly overnight emergency operator, who quickly informs us that it will most likely be between 1:00 and 2:00 PM before they could have someone over to see what is ailing Mr. Rheem. However, there is another option. We could pay the extra fee to wake up some poor unsuspecting HVAC man in the middle of the night to come over immediately before my home becomes Marc's meat locker.

After another majority vote, we elect to take option B.

As my family and I sit in the living room covered in blankets, huddled around the Lasko space heater waiting for Kyle the happy HVAC man to arrive, I couldn't help but wonder, how in the name of Zeus's butthole did any of the pioneers survive these cold winter nights on the plains, and when did I become such a blithering whimp?

Anyway, Kyle finally showed up. He was actually a very friendly guy, considering we had just taken him out of his nice warm bed, forced him into a February deep freeze, only to have him place his groggy head into my dusty, broken-down furnace at 1:40 in the AM.

Twenty some minutes later, the culprit was revealed, something called the "pressure stick" had failed. Three hundred and thirty dollars later, we had heat again. (Cue the heavenly angels singing!)

So ends my February furnace failure fiasco.

I can't wait to get Rheemed again later this year when my central air conditioner unit decides to take a dump in say mid-July, when it's 98 degrees outside, and the heat index is a 110!

Actually, those temperatures sound really appealing right now.

Ah, the joys of home ownership! Stay warm everybody!

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