cold....so very, very cold.
Yesterday was the coldest day since 95', -20F with wind chills (-30 in some places). Fate had decided to make the day a bit more interesting.
After my mother left for her new job (just started the job on Monday), our oil burning furnace started making strange noises and refused to start. We have had problems with it in the past, the usual way of fixing it involved kicking it and that has worked for the last 15 or so years. Apparently it was tired of getting kicked, and wasn't having any of that any longer.
I called my mother and left her a message on her cell. Set up my little portable heater to point in the direction of one of the last waterlines that had not froze up yet (man they froze up fast). And then went over my sister's house. I hate to admit but that is about all I could do.
I sat at my sister's house all the while she fed me. Not sure why but each time I come over she is always making some sort of food, you would think she be fat as a cow but she only weighs around 90 pounds. Anyways, at around 11 or so I get a call from my mother asking what is going on. I tell her prity much the same thing I told her in the message I left her. And being my mother she asks me perhaps the stupidest question one can ask at that point in time, that being "Did you press the red button?". This red button in question is the reset button that one has to push to make the thing start after the safety switch turns off the furnace. Any time you did not get to the furnace to kick it in time you would have to hit the button to restart it then kick it to get it working. I have pressed this button a million times since living here. I took offense to the question, only a fucking retard would not hit the button. And I took her asking me this question to imply that she thought I was a fucking retard, and voiced my opinion over the phone.
After a little spat with her she told me she will be leaving work and coming home to see what was going on. I met her at home, and she turned on the furnace and listened to it make noises, as I have before her, and watched as it turned itself off a few moments later. I went out to get propane, so that we could use the oven as a source of heat (we have done so in the past). The guy getting the propane for me was strangely chatty considering how cold it was outside. After getting home and hooking up the propane we went off to a hardware store to get some portable heaters, they turned out to really suck.
We got home around 5 or so which is really late for me to be up, I'm a night person and had been up since around 9 the following night. So I went to sleep, only to be woken up by my mother's BF bitching and wining about the furnace he was working on out side my room. He sounded like a spoiled child that was not granted a toy that he wanted. I tried going back to sleep but it wasn't happening. And after hearing him cuss out my mother and the furnace and everything that a simple minded barbarian could think of I left to go back to my sister's house.
To make a long story a bit shorter, lets just say that the furnace now works. Perhaps better then it did before. The only water pipe to break is the one that drains the water from the tub. It was a long cold day, one that I hope I do not have to repeat.
After my mother left for her new job (just started the job on Monday), our oil burning furnace started making strange noises and refused to start. We have had problems with it in the past, the usual way of fixing it involved kicking it and that has worked for the last 15 or so years. Apparently it was tired of getting kicked, and wasn't having any of that any longer.
I called my mother and left her a message on her cell. Set up my little portable heater to point in the direction of one of the last waterlines that had not froze up yet (man they froze up fast). And then went over my sister's house. I hate to admit but that is about all I could do.
I sat at my sister's house all the while she fed me. Not sure why but each time I come over she is always making some sort of food, you would think she be fat as a cow but she only weighs around 90 pounds. Anyways, at around 11 or so I get a call from my mother asking what is going on. I tell her prity much the same thing I told her in the message I left her. And being my mother she asks me perhaps the stupidest question one can ask at that point in time, that being "Did you press the red button?". This red button in question is the reset button that one has to push to make the thing start after the safety switch turns off the furnace. Any time you did not get to the furnace to kick it in time you would have to hit the button to restart it then kick it to get it working. I have pressed this button a million times since living here. I took offense to the question, only a fucking retard would not hit the button. And I took her asking me this question to imply that she thought I was a fucking retard, and voiced my opinion over the phone.
After a little spat with her she told me she will be leaving work and coming home to see what was going on. I met her at home, and she turned on the furnace and listened to it make noises, as I have before her, and watched as it turned itself off a few moments later. I went out to get propane, so that we could use the oven as a source of heat (we have done so in the past). The guy getting the propane for me was strangely chatty considering how cold it was outside. After getting home and hooking up the propane we went off to a hardware store to get some portable heaters, they turned out to really suck.
We got home around 5 or so which is really late for me to be up, I'm a night person and had been up since around 9 the following night. So I went to sleep, only to be woken up by my mother's BF bitching and wining about the furnace he was working on out side my room. He sounded like a spoiled child that was not granted a toy that he wanted. I tried going back to sleep but it wasn't happening. And after hearing him cuss out my mother and the furnace and everything that a simple minded barbarian could think of I left to go back to my sister's house.
To make a long story a bit shorter, lets just say that the furnace now works. Perhaps better then it did before. The only water pipe to break is the one that drains the water from the tub. It was a long cold day, one that I hope I do not have to repeat.