Yesterday afternoon we got the call. Our son Nathan is the property manager for our rental home in Cassadaga. He is worth every penny we pay him. Yes, we pay him. He is performing a valuable service for us, and deserves to be paid for it. Anyway, it seems the furnace wasn't working, and our tenants had called him. He was checking with us to make sure his plans to deal with the problem were OK by us. They were.
There's a bit of history to this furnace. We hired this particular contractor because he had a young man from our church working for him. This was before the church blowout, after which the young man was still working for the contractor, but wasn't from our church anymore. Go figure. This particular furnace was recommended as the latest and greatest of the high efficiency models. It may have been the latest, but it surely wasn't the greatest. It's been nothing but trouble, costing us a small fortune in repairs. Over the past eleven years, I think we could have bought at least one complete new furnace for what we've sunk into this one.
The first time it quit, the contractor who installed it didn't answer our calls, so we called Colburns, a local company for whom I have the greatest respect. They have always come when we needed them, and done everything possible to keep things running. Once, with our church furnaces, another company told us one of them needed to be replaced at a cost of about $8,000. Colburns came out, looked it over, and built a new control panel from scratch, costing us a tenth of what the other company was going to charge us. Turns out, our furnace wasn't even installed properly, which caused at least some of the problems we have had.
We've gotten to be quite good friends with Colburn's service staff. I wouldn't be surprised if they are on our Christmas card list, or if they showed up for a random birthday or two. We are definitely on first name basis. Terry, for example, loves to fish. You learn a lot when you spend gobs of time with the serviceman. This particular time however, Nathan was the one to spend time with him. We met Nate and family for dinner at the Ashville Country Store before attending the girls' band concert. When Nate walked in, he said, "It isn't good. It needs a new motherboard. Probably about $500." In the meantime, he had been scrambling to get temporary electric heaters placed throughout the house so pipes wouldn't freeze in the sub-zero weather.
Today Nate called with even worse news. When the motherboard decided to fry itself, all the arcing took out the gas valve, which had already been replaced once. The serviceman said it looked like fireworks going off on that motherboard. Another $500, please. I called George (Colburn. See? We ARE on first name basis!) this afternoon to talk about it. A new furnace was going to cost upwards of $4,000, which might be worthwhile if we were going to keep the place,but we are planning to sell it. So, a thousand (give or take a couple hundred, probably more on the "give" side) it is. With all that's been replaced, it should be just about a totally new furnace.
George was all apologetic about it, saying that this model has been a dog from the day it came out, but ours has barked more than all the others. Oh well, there are people with lots worse problems than a balky furnace. Nate did his job admirably. He was the one out till nearly midnight, making sure everything would be OK for the night; not me. Our pipes didn't freeze, we have the money to fix it, Colburns will get it going pronto, and we aren't facing life-threatening illness, homelessness, or have a family on a collision course with itself. How can it be anything other than a good day? Our Isabel turned twelve today, and I am grateful that whatever problems we have are pretty minuscule by any comparison. God is good.
No comments:
Post a Comment