[Magdalen] ''Twas a Cold Night

[Jay Weigel]

A couple of years ago we came home from Sanibel in January to find our
house temperature at 55F. We had the thermostat set for 63F as we usually
do when going away for an extended period but for some reason it had
failed. We'd been using our pellet stove as our main heat source and the
furnace for backup, but obviously the pellet stove had not been lit while
we were away. S/O lit the stove right away and went to deal with the
furnace, which would not stay on. I was not only freezing, but was
miserable anyway because I had come down with a cold the day we left
Florida and my head was horribly stuffed up; the first leg of the flight
back had been miserable as my ears wouldn't "pop" with the altitude--the
purchase of some benadryl at the layover stop helped that. S/O put me to
bed with the electric blanket and multiple quilts and I finally got warm
enough to go to sleep. The next morning he called for service and it turned
out that the thermostat needed replacement.

Interestingly, since the advent of the pellet stove (a Wiseway gravity-fed
critter, no blower, no power required) we use less than half the amount of
oil we previously did, and even with the cost of the pellets for the season
we do not get close to our previous heating bills.

On Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Christopher Hart <cervus51 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Late yesterday evening I discovered that our heat was not working. I called
> for service and they arranged for a technician to come in the morning. By
> the time I got up today the house was down to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. So the
> guy came around 8:15 and shortly discovered that we were quite simply out
> of oil. He described the tank as "bone dry". WTF? We've been on automatic
> delivery for 25 years and if anything they usually deliver extra when we
> don't need it just to get my money. Running out never even occurred to me.
> He put in ten gallons to get us started and we will have more delivered
> tomorrow. It's a relief to know that the furnace wasn't malfunctioning, but
> a pretty unpleasant experience. Of course, this is the coldest weekend in
> the last two months.
> --
>
> Christopher Hart
>
> List Mail Address: cervus51 at gmail.com
> Personal Mail: cervus at veritasliberat.net
> Twitter: @cervus51
>