- One night in a hotel
- Several hours huddled up in our house with blankets and space heaters, shivering
- Nearly $1,000 in repair/labor costs
- A lot of time worrying
Well... somehow Lester and I hadn't realized that we were supposed to get our furnace cleaned at least once a year. The last time we got the furnace cleaned was, let me think.....hmmmm. Ummm, that would be never.
All that non-cleaning resulted in a carbon monoxide leak (OMG!) and flames leaping out of our furnace -- a scary, potential fire hazard.
The gas company had to turn off our hot water heater and furnace (hence the night in the hotel) and the repair job the next day took nearly six hours to complete (thus, the huddling and shivering).
I'm not ashamed to say that I cried some thinking about how close we got to real danger -- and how blessed we are to count only money as a cost of this incident.
A family not too far from us recently ended up in the hospital -- and one member is still in critical condition -- because of a carbon monoxide leak caused by a faulty furnace.
So even though we are almost $1,000 poorer, we are also warm and safe and totally blessed.
You can't put a price on that.
4 comments:
WHAT?! I've never heard of such a thing. How scary!
I'm so so so late in blog commenting this week but did want to say that we have a yearly inspection of our heating and AC systems. They do all this maintenance then, and in the south, if you are on a maintenance contract when you need a repair, you are top priority. This is particularly helpful when it's 105 heat index and your AC goes out!
Thank goodness nothing bad happened to you! Carbon monoxide leaks are one of the common hazards when your furnace is neglected. Aside from being a fire hazard, the leak could also cause flu-like symptoms due to the amount of carbon that you might inhale. So as much as possible, contact a reliable furnace repairman to do the job, so that other possible issues will be detected when they do the inspection.
Harvey Chapman @ Liberty Comfort Systems
Oh no! I can't believe you had to go through all that trouble, all because of a dirty furnace. I guess it's good to take notice of taking care of it rather seriously. It shouldn't be enough that the furnace is working as it should. Maintenance should never slip your mind. Well, I hope that was a lesson learned. Thanks for sharing that! All the best to you and your family! :)
Dennis Cannon @ Laird & Son
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