The Heat is on (albeit briefly)

Soon after we moved in, California experienced some colder than usual temperatures which would have been fine except that by then we had added the furnace to the list of things in the house that didn’t work. There was a gas fireplace living room but it wasn’t putting out a lot of heat. We went out and bought some more blankets and a small ceramic heater but it was pretty freezing cold first thing in the morning and at various other times of the day. We wore our coats a lot in the house. And yes I will confess it now; I skipped a few showers rather than get completely undressed.

After some Internet research, we chose the company that could do the work the quickest but who also sounded like they knew what they were doing. However, the worker we ended up with didn’t have any experience with installing the new generation of higher efficiency furnace we chose. We didn’t know this. If we had knew replacement furnaces shouldn’t take eight hours to install we might have realised something was wrong. We were given a small clue when the installer’s brother (who was supposed to be doing the job but had gone instead to another job) came over at the end of his job and they started whispering to each other upstairs (where the furnace cupboard is located).
We used the eight hours talking about design ideas so the time wasn’t wasted but neither was standing up in our coats up against the fireplace to garner what little heat it was giving off, the best time in California I’ve ever spent.
But, finally the job was finished, the furnace was turned on and we could feel the magical elixir known as warm air blowing out of the vents. So all seemed well.



Opening the door to look at the furnace, we noticed it was a little warm in the cupboard it stood in. That was because the silver foil material you can see above the furnace wasn’t sealed properly and heat that should be going through the system and onto us, was heating the furnace cupboard instead.
We left a message with the owner and he came out the next day (Saturday) to look at it. He said a new crew would come out on Monday with him to supervise. In the meanwhile we would put the furnace on for short periods but otherwise it was back to the ceramic heater.
Monday came and the same two workers showed up without the owner. They worked for several more hours and declared the problem fixed. The inspector showed up in the afternoon and agreed with us that the problem was not fixed and it failed its inspection. Another call to the owner. Absolutely a new crew would be back out there tomorrow. Sadly, they obviously got kidnapped by the old crew because the old crew was who showed up. In spite of this (chorus of trumpets sounding) whether by luck, or by judgment, they sealed the system up correctly and the while the furnace pushed out its hot air, the cupboard remains cool.