Super sniffer

Shane says I have a "super-sniffer." This means, basically that I have a nose that detects smells when others can't smell anything. So, it should come as no surprise that last week I called the gas company to come and check out our stove because it smelled like propane (which is the "warning smell" that gas gives off if there is a leak,) and since we don't have a propane stove, I figured it must be leaking somewhere.

So, two guys from the gas company came by. They had a little detector thing that reminded me of ghostbusters, and even sounded like it when they set it off on purpose...but no dice. There was not a leak in my stove. Apparently my super sniffer was just being paranoid.

The detector looked like this, but I think it was yellow.


So, since they were there anyway, I told them that we needed our furnace checked for the green sticker thing, and they went downstairs to check it...which they told me they would have done anyway since they were there. They also checked our meter to make sure it was working properly and registering the level of gas used correctly.

When they checked our furnace things got really exciting. Our furnace is OLD. When we bought the house, we knew it was old, and had it checked before we bought the house. It was still below the accepted CO levels when it was running, so it was kept. The furnace is from the late 70's though. WOW. Anyway, when they checked the furnace they discovered that it had 2 blocked chambers.

When they found this out, the older worker looked at me and went "that's BAD...really BAD." *sigh* So, I knew as soon as he said it that we would have to get a new furnace. He told me that technically we didn't need to get a new one, and that if we wanted to, we could just have the old one fixed. He was just letting me know what my options were. I appreciated that, but it didn't make sense to put 300-500 dollars into fixing a furnace that was living on borrowed time anyway. Might as well put it towards a new one.

So, now we are trying to get bids for installing furnaces. It's amazing the things that you learn when you own or rent a home. When we lived in Tremonton, for example, we lived in a home that had OLD radiant heat, with a boiler and everything. I learned a whole lot more about boilers than I ever wanted to. It had a fairly new boiler in the basement, but the pipes were old and huge to carry steam, and were getting leaks all the time. WHAT A PAIN!! I like forced air better. I know you get stuff in the air, but to me it is more comfortable than the heat with radiant heat.

I even looked up the main brands of furnaces on the internet...here is what I learned...people either really love them or really hate them. Very rarely was there an in between comment. THIS WAS FOR ALL THE BRANDS!! Yeah, it was really helpful. However, the most helpful thing I read was that the person who INSTALLS it can literally make or break you. If you have an excellent installer, you will probably love your furnace. If you have a super nice furnace, and someone inexperienced puts it in...you will probably have lots of problems.

So, we'll see. We have a HVAC guy coming on wednesday to give us a bid. He is NATE (North American Technician Excellence) certified as well as other certifications and installs all major brands of furnaces, so we'll see how it goes.