The Machine Jihad

Our machines have turned against us.

You all know our tale of major appliance woe from the last couple of months, but now there is more.

It started a few days ago when the lawn mower just up and died. No warning, just stopped. No big deal, we just borrowed the neighbor's for the time being and moved on with our lives.

Today, the car died, and not just the little deaths that cars sometimes have and recover from, but a big scary death with gushing oil, smoke and what is most likely a cracked block. We can not afford to buy a car, but we must have a car. It is a conundrum, to say the least.

We do have temporary transportation for a couple of days (thank you, thank you, thank you Erich & Sara), but we need to figure out what's next beyond that.

This many things going belly up in the last two months can only mean one thing: Jihad.

The mower was only two years old and showed no hint that it was about to fail. The car, while a bit past it's prime, has given us no trouble. It was a bit overdue for an oil change, it's true, but no lights came on, no warning was issued, it just blew. Thankfully we where pulling up to a friend's house when it went south so we were in no real danger, but that doesn't change the fact that we now have no car.

The machines are out to get us in some Matrix/Terminatoresque fashion. Fear for us, and for yourselves, for they will strike when you least expect it.

New Furnace, but...

A nice, new super efficient furnace is resting in our basement, taking the chill out of the house as we speak. The rub is, that apparently, gas appliances have empathy or each other.

It seems that as the old furnace breathed it's last, it's dear friend the water heater couldn't take the loneliness, and went into renal failure. It's not dead yet, but it doesn't have long. We're hoping to send it to be with it's friend before it has a stroke and gives up the ghost entirely.

Cracked What?

So the furnace began acting up a few day ago, and stopped giving us wonderful, soothing heat. At first we just put it off, figuring warm weather was just around the corner. But, then it got colder, so we said to hell with this, and called the repair guy.

The furnace is pretty new, just installed in '95, so I was thinking the problem was nothing major: a bad thermostat, a sensor on the fritz, or something else low impact that would wind up costing a hundred bucks and we'd go back to our not so chilly business.

I know nothing about furnaces, the guy could have told me it needs a kidney transplant and I wouldn't know the difference, but the words "Cracked Heat Exchanger" sound ominous. Indeed it is, as apparently that is a fatal condition for gas furnaces.

We get to be cold for a little bit longer while things get sorted out, but at least it's not the dead of winter.

Update 4/10 @ 11:40 am:

Tomorrow morning the furnace will be replaced, so our time of cold is coming to an end. Even the cat was cold this morning, so we're glad that this is almost done with.