Furnace Is FIXED, Man!

The Mansion is once again flowing with the milk of human kindness. Oh, wait! I can't catch my breath! Heh, heh! Any folks who know Mrs. Hillbilly Mom and Farmer H know that's a Pollyanna-ish assumption an unfortunate slip of the tongue a bold-faced lie. What I MEANT to say was that the Manion is once again flowing with heat.

The heating and cooling man got here yesterday around 4:30. Let the record show that Farmer H didn't call them until after 8:00 a.m. The company said they would call Farmer H when a repairman was on his way south. That's because Mrs. HM had two-week-old lunch plans with her best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel, along with The Pony, and just-in-for-the-day #1 Son. So nobody would be home to let the repairman into the ice cold Mansion. Farmer H, though, could make it home in 20 minutes (he said, even though it takes him 40).

Seems that the problem was in the thermostat. Let the record show that this thermostat was replaced in 2012. We'd been having trouble with the air conditioner running all the time, not kicking on and off. So Farmer H made me stay home for a repairman. He found nothing wrong. Or maybe something with the capacitor. I can't find it now, though I'm sure I complained blogged about it back then. And only two weeks later, the whole durn thing quit cooling, so I had to wait for the repairman again. And this one charged me for two pounds of Freon and said we had a slow leak. AND replaced the thermostat for free, saying that MIGHT have something to do with it. He took the old one with him, and by the time Farmer H got home, I had figured out that this new thermostat was the cinnamon babka of thermostats. It did NOT change automatically to heat or cool as the need arose, but had to be pushed with a thumb from one setting to another! That's barbaric.

Anyhoo...this latest repairman to work on our furnace put on a new thermostat, and IT DIDN'T WORK, either. He mumbled about these things always happening at the end of the day. He made about 20 trips up and down the 13 basement steps. I could have charged him a personal trainer fee. Farmer H was there watching him, so he didn't try any shenanigans. He finally put a third thermostat on, and said we were getting a good deal, because it was better than the one we had. AHEM. I pointed out that the one we had was WORSE than the one we had before, when another of his repairmen switched it out. THEN he said, "I don't mean any offense, but this is what we call an Old People's Thermostat. It has big numbers. It's easy to use."

Well, whoop-ti-freakin'-doo! I know I'm old. I need my electronics simple. You're not insulting me any, bub. But don't act like you're doing US a favor, when YOUR guy put that low-rent 'stat on our wall and took the old one, which had not even been proven to be not working!

I'm still waiting to find out if this new thermostat automatically switches between heat and AC. Farmer H says #1 can program it when he's home for Christmas. "He loves that kind of stuff." AHEM. That's the kind of stuff Farmer H makes twice a master teacher's salary to do at work. Anyhoo...the repairman asked how many settings we wanted it programmed for, and Farmer H said, "Just two. Daytime and night time."

Last night, I was freezing my fingers off in the basement. I feared the furnace was broken again. I heard Farmer H stomping around upstairs on his footless ankles. This morning he told me that the heat was programmed to go down to 60 degrees at night.

I may be old, but I'm pretty sure that repairman set it that low on purpose.