12 days before Christmas and, of course, something major has to go wrong. It wouldn't be my life, if it didn't. You see, I live with Murphy and his silly law. You know: If anything can go wrong at the worst possible moment, it will.
The blower for my furnace shit the bed tonight. It had been making squealing noises for the past two days. I was hoping it would hold out until after Christmas, but noooooooooooo.
The repairman came & removed the blower. He then informed me he had nothing to replace it with, he would bring it to the repair shop tomorrow and hopefully, be able to reinstall it by tomorrow night, that is, if the repair shop had the time to fix it. (He fixes all kinds of small motors, after all.)
He inquired if I had any kind of a metal box fan about 7x9 inches. Right, I keep a couple just that size in the shed. Without a fan to push the heat into the duct system, the furnace would heat the closet it's housed in, and not much else. Great. On the coldest night of the season so far.
The "oh, so helpful" repairman, leaves. I phone Superdad for assistance, twice. Son and I head out to our local hardware store (Grainger isn't open past 5PM and it's now 6:30PM) in hopes of finding some kind of fan.
The helpful clerk informs us that fans are usually in isle 48, "but, we usually store those items off season". Sure - take away my one glimmer of hope.
We find isle 48 stocked with space heaters. Well, if it's that or freezing.... Isle 47 has 4 or 5 actual fans in it. One is a 14 inch industrial strength all metal fan. It will have to do. It's the only one on the shelf and the box is open on both ends. It appears too big to fit inside the furnace where the blower was, but I'll have to make it work.
I ask the girl at the register if she can give me any kind of a break on the $41.99 price because the box is open on both ends and the fan is held in by a large twist tie. (Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask.) She calls over the manager and he asks if there were any others on the shelf. "No, it was the only one". I get 10% off the full original overprice. (Told ya, it didn't hurt to ask).
We get home and confirm that the fan is too big to fit into the space that previously housed the blower. The weak box fan blowing into the vents on the front of the furnace door has kept the house temperature at 60 degrees, so there is a glimmer of hope for this much more powerful fan.
We manage to bungee cord the fan to the front of the furnace door on high. Eureka! Heat is produced from the floor registers. The temperature manages to jump to 64 degrees in just a half hour.
I probably won't sleep a wink tonight between, listening to the high velocity fan constantly running and worrying about the pipes freezing, but, here's to good old New England ingenuity and it being 68 degrees inside when it's 8 degrees outside.
2 comments:
Lord woman- when it rains it falls huh?
I was wondering where he went. Please tell Murphey when he gets tired of living w/you he can come back home for a while. I am kind of missing him... ;)
Ah .. I have murphy's relative living with my neighbours now, and well ... their in-laws are a real pain too.
There is nothing a little Macgyver motion won't solve. You should see how I rig up my stuffs with paper tapes and strings.
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