Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Furnace Fun

One of the intimidating things about being a home owner are appliances... those large, complicated machines that could potentially break at very inopportune times and leave you feeling helpless. In the last year, I've only had one issue and had to call in the GE man to fix my dishwasher. I was thinking the other day about my furnace-or maybe it was the faint burnt smell I got a whiff of while passing the laundry room. I seemed to remember somewhere that you have to change the filter on furnaces...hmm.
I discussed this with Ben. Although I am sure he knew perfectly well how to do it, he was not the typical guy who was anxious to show off his manly fix-it-all skills and offer to do it. (I've never been able to pull off the helpless girl act well, and come to think of it... some guys I've asked for help on stuff have ended up being, well, less-than-helpful). But knowing my independent spirit, he kindly said, "that will be an interesting project for you to learn about tonight, won't it".
Ok. I'm up for the challenge! what first? pull out the manual? oh wait...find the manual...do I even have a manual? stratch that...that's why there is Google! Read some pointers from howstuffworks.com and it turns out furnaces can all be quite different. I just decided to inspect it myself and figure it out. 30 seconds later, I was done. Really. That was it?
Is it sad that I feel so empowered by the fact that I can change my own furnace filter?

4 comments:

Melissa Hislop said...

Yay Emily! It certainly isn't sad. I would feel the same way, though I probably wouldn't have figured it out as fast or gotten frustrated I couldn't figure it out in one try and made dad to it for me.

Jerry said...

Congrats on cleaning your own filter.

Emily Gilgen said...

Emily your website needs to be changed with new material. Some of us live to see what you post and when you don't post anything we go into a deep depression like a dirty filter not functioning properly in a furnace. Bam baby.

Emily Gilgen said...

thanks ben. I know I've been slacking...it is partly your fault though...