Service Call

You know how when you have a million things going on... including your seventh newborn and a cross-country move... and you just don't have time for little problems that will slow you down? Well, the furnace stopped working today. We don't even own this house anymore and we're moving in a week. I really didn't want to deal with a service call and bill to fix the silly furnace. But what choice do we have... we couldn't just leave it. Don't think I didn't consider it though!

We called our usual HVAC repair company and they sent a guy out. It was an easy fix. The exhaust pipe was blocked and, of course, there is a safety mechanism that causes the furnace to turn off if it cannot vent. The repair guy just had to clean out the vent which runs from just outside the back garage service door to the unit in the middle of our basement. It's a fairly long pipe, but the blockage was right where the pipe vents outside. What was blocking it you ask?

Well, if you happened to be naughty little boys what would you stuff into a vent? Dirt. Check. Rocks. Check. A racquetball. Sure. String. Why not? A urine specimen cup. Yes, yes, they did. Where did they even get a urine specimen cup, you ask? Remember their mother was (not too many weeks ago) going to weekly OB/GYN visits that included taking a urine sample. When the baby was born, and the need for urine samples ceased, the naive mother tossed the remaining (thankfully unused) cup into the recycling bin where the naughty boys found it. Why they stuffed it in the vent remains a mystery.

I'm pretty sure the HVAC guy has never, and will probably never again, pulled a urine specimen cup out of a vent. This lovely vent clean out cost $117. I was going to take the money out of five savings accounts, but in a stroke of genius I remembered I had a $100 "gift card" as a thank you for a referral. The nice repairman took that and a check for $17 as payment and laughed all the way down the street.