there is something to waking up to a cold house and then layering your clothes to get ready for a cold bicycle ride and then venturing out the door in the morning to a brisk wind and the chill that it brings and then being in that cold for a good 50 minutes.
a cup of tea, and then another and another and another and another--maybe ten in total throughout the day--once at work--helps to warm the ass and fingers and toes. Because those are the extremities that get cold. Your core, this is your chest and upper and lower abdomen stay hot and toasty and even sweaty while riding in the winter in michigan. This is, of course, dependent on proper layering. Which I am quite a pro at now.
Anyhow, our boiler busted last Friday. It up and quit on us; the old thing had no life left in it. It had rusted through so badly on the bottom grate that burn marks had started to develop up the sides of the metal box inside. All in all, it is a good thing it died, cause we didn't burn up in our ancient wooden house.
See one time this wrinkled, old man who drove a beat up mini van with George Bush Senior Stickers coating the rear of it--like 25 identical stickers--came to our house to give us some advice on how we might convert our coal burner (no longer functioning) to a wood stove and also how much it would cost to re-line the chimney. His estimate was way high--like $3,000, but he did offer us a warning. He said, "you girls should have safety ladders in the bedrooms upstairs cause if your house ever catches on fire you will not escape using the stairway. the flames will draw up the stairs and you will be trapped up there."
I stood wide jawed and thanked him for his advice. I already have a chain linked ladder in our bedroom, but damn that was some scary advice.
Thus far, we have avoided death by boiler fire and have frozen our fannies off for a total of 6 days. After forking over $3,850, we will soon have heat via a new boiler system. I can no longer type this post cause my fingers are too cold...
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4 comments:
i am so grateful for you that have the money to fix this TERRIBLE problem. As a chilly fingers, ass, toes person, your situation would make me a refugee on someone's floor.
ha. we do not really have the money, but we do have plastic and now we have debt which sucks ass...
Do you have rice sacks that you can warm up in the microwave? They stay warm forever. We use them at night when we turn the furnace down. If you don't you can make some with a sewing machine, fabric, and rice.
That's too bad about your boiler. Such huge and sort of unexpected expenses are lousy, but I hope the new furnace makes the house warm and comfortable.
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