Crazy House

A couple of weeks ago Jon and I were talking about our lovely old home. We have slowly, but surely fixed most of the main things. We only have the kitchen renovation and the roof left. There are quite a few things that we would like to add eventually, but these are the two current needs.

A few days after this conversation we are rudely awakened at 4am to a shrieking alarm. It was the carbon monoxide detector. I learned something new that morning. There are two levels of alarm. One indicator means call 911 and get out immediately. The second indicator means that the levels are high, but not completely toxic. So open all of the windows until the alarm goes off and fix problem. Thankfully it was the 2nd indicator. So we opened all of the windows to let the 30 degree air inside. While Jon was opening windows, I was covering the kids with blankets. The entire time the alarm was screaming.

Jon turned the heat off and then left the next morning on a business trip. I was able to get the heating people out very quickly. It is amazing what mentioning that alarm will do for the back up in service calls.

The guy that came out tested the unit first and tested inside for lingering carbon monoxide. He made me leave immediately until he could get the levels down. It was apparently dangerously high. After some poking and muttering, he informed me that my unit was completely toast. It was so rusted that he couldn't believe we hadn't had problems w/ our alarm before. It was also so incredibly old that they hadn't made that type in years and years.

I agreed to pay a huge chunk of change and he left after making sure the levels were safe again.

He was gracious enough to leave me a box of space heaters to use until the unit could be delivered and put in the next morning.

We are now the proud reluctant owners of a very new metal box. We've already noticed a difference in how quickly our home heats. So can we NOW say that we are almost done? Surely there isn't anything else that needs to be replaced in this old house. Because I'm ready for a new kitchen.