Cold... Cold... Cold!

Brrrr it's been cold in the house lately when we wake up in the morning, but today it was even colder than usual. I really didn't want to get out of bed, the covers were so warm and snugly. But our dog decided she had waited long enough and wanted to go out. So I crawled out of my warm bed, slid my slippers on and proceeded to let her out for her morning business.

I went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee (hmm haven't done that yet!) and I noticed, through my slippers!, how cold the kitchen floor was... wow... and even my cheeks and u

pper arms were cold through my pj's. Winter must really be setting in. So I decided to check the thermostat and see where we were at. I had noticed lately that 70 degrees in winter was oddly colder than 70 degrees in summer. Why is that??

The thermostat was set for 71 but WHAT? Oh MY... the current temp showed as 56 degrees!! No wonder I was so cold! I trudged downstairs and into the furnace room. Sure enough it wasn't making ANY noise! The access panel was already (still) off and I wasn't sure where the pilot light was but I knew it wasn't lit. So back upstairs I went and gathered the electronic lighter (we use for the grill) and the phone; dialed my husband (can I still say 'dialed'?) on the way back down. I told him the temp of the house, and that the heater was not on AND that we'd better fix it soon before our pipes freeze! So please.. tell me where/how to light the pilot. (I've lit pilots before so surely this one couldn't be that bad) WELL... he informed me, this one does not have a pilot we light manually. HUH?? Then how do we light it!? He said he'd turn around and come back home after calling work to let them know he will be late.

Well, ....

while waiting for him I figured I could at least do some 'prep work' and read the instructions on the side of the heater. "Set thermostat to lowest setting" HUH? Wasn't it cold enough? And how low would it go? it's digital!!... But I did and found out it only goes down to 45 ! YAY. The next step was turn off electricity to the unit... this one stumped me as there was no cord! So I called my husband, who was now almost home... and he said we probably would have to flip the circuit breaker to it. Ohhhh Ya... ok. Fortunately the switches are labeled and I found Furnace easily. By then he was home and sitting in the nice padded chair I had put in front of the heater control for him. The next step was to remove access panel (HA, done) and flip the gas switch to OFF. Well... that took a little finding but I managed to find it (Yay me!) and we flipped it... waited.... flipped it back... (hey, this is like rebooting a computer!) and then I trudged back upstairs to put the thermostat back to 71 and wait. Well, it took a little more doing, apparantly there was a connection that was trying and sparking and my husband saw it and turned off the circuit breaker again... opened the little plastic enclosure and dusted it off, put it back together and all was well in pilot land.

It's going to take a while to get the house up to temp tho... as of now it's been an hour and we're up 6 degrees. LOL Oh... so then... (ya, we're not done yet)... I put a load of laundry in the washer and started it. 10 min later I noticed an odd error code on the front. (Yes digital) I suspected a water problem, so I went to the laundry room sink... exactly... no cold water. Back bathroom... no cold water & kitchen... no cold water. CRUD. Odd thing was... the other bathroom, on the far side of the h

ouse, had cold water! So, my past experience says... turn on the taps, and hope the warming up of the house

will warm up the pipes, and run some hot water also.... so I'm doing that at the moment.... and so far I now have the slightest of a

trickle in the back bathroom but ONLY in that sink. I'm sure it'll thaw, but just in case I opened the oven and cranked it up to 350 to help warm up the house. (Yes, I know the pipes are downstairs... it's already getting warm down there).

So Happy Friday!