It's funny how just when you think things are bad life decides to make things worse. Yesterday morning started out normal with me slowly waking out of bed around 4am. I felt warm at first which was good but as I made my way downstairs things took a chilly turn. It wasn't long before I got confirmation from Dom that the radiator next to him was cold. That woke me up completely.
I went up to the thermostat and the room temp was 54 degrees, two degrees lower than was set. As a side rant some may wonder why our thermostat is set to a low 56 degrees. The location of the thermostat is in our chilly hallway. We have to keep it that low to keep the heat from barreling out of control, though it really doesn't work to resolve that. Another side rant comes in the form of our Nipsco bill which was $486 last month and now $516. I hate Nipsco with the same intensity that I used to hate Comcast so long ago. I'm not the only one.
So the thermostat had a status that the heat was on but with the temps falling in the house I knew that was a lie. I confirmed that the radiator in the bathroom was also cold. I went downstairs and found that our old Crane Sunnyday boiler which had to have been installed sometime in the 1950's or 1960's was making a whirring noise and water was slowly leaking out of one of the pipes.
When we purchased our home we knew that the boiler was on borrowed time. It held in there for a little over 10 years so that was an accomplishment. But the timing of its demise could not be worse. I'm already hurting from covering all of Dom's doll pre-orders since he's not working. The money I had saved a few years ago has dwindled to below half of what I used to have. My credit card bills have skyrocketed thanks to Dom's crap and I'm on the edge of having to pay interest fees again for the first time since 2023.
I've been working so hard to try and obtain financial freedom but having to pay for a new boiler potentially will be an additional setback. I've been scraping the barrel to try and pay extra on my monthly mortgage which I'm so close to paying off. I'll still try to give something extra but it may not be as much as I'd like to give.
To top it off the place that I called that potentially may be able to repair the boiler (which given the age I don't know if it can be saved) won't be available to look at until Thursday afternoon, a full two and a half days from when it died. I was told by the person who recommended the place to tell them I live in the good part of our city (otherwise they may not come). I'm guessing at best if it's a repair that can save the radiator, I may have to pay at least $1000 though worse case scenario, I may have to pay between $3000 - $5000 for a new boiler. And of course they charge a service fee just for coming to check it out. It's such a racket.
So needless to say I'm not a happy camper. We're managing to hang in there with a few space heaters that are turned on from time to time and keeping the french doors to our living room closed to try to minimize the draft from the hallway. But man is this going to hurt me financially. At least I can escape to the office today to warm up. Thankfully too our old water heater is hanging on so at least we have hot water.
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