My supposedly “high end” furnace is being repaired for the third time in a week, so I decided to go down into the crawl space and have a look.
I grew up in a proper house with a basement, and didn’t even know crawl spaces were a thing until we moved to this mid-century modern (1956) ranch house in 2016.
To access the crawl space we have to remove the chairs and push the table on its rug out of the dining area. Thus revealing this hole which would be something out of a Jungian dream were it not right there in my house right now.
And so I have returned to the World of the Living. But I am not finished with the Underworld: the bill has yet to arrive, and I am warned it’s gonna be a doozy.
So curious, so brave, so funny.
That space is calling your name.
What gifts await you there?
Keep exploring the Crawl Space.
Maybe Persephone and Inanna will share what they learned there.
And how they came back transformed.
Hi Nina
I replaced our 1970’s low efficiency furnace with a high efficiency Goodman furnace in 2002 when Natural Gas went up 600% in price. I figured I would save about $175/year in heating costs and it should pay for itself in 10-12 years.
Unfortunately the Goodman tended to crap out every few years, and its electronic guts could only be repaired by a specialist, costing $500 a call-out.
Last year it needed another $500. The tech recommended I replace it for $7000(Canadian) as the heat exchanger was now 20 years old and it would be $2000 to replace it. Okey Dokey.
Meanwhile the 70’s furnace got moved out to my garage. Besides the heat exchanger, it has only 4 parts: fan switch, gas valve, motor, fan belt. I can replace all of them myself and the parts range from $5 for the belt and fan switch, to $90 for the gas valve. So far nothing has needed replacing.
Turns out the ‘Climate Change’ that wiped out all the gas wells in the Gulf in 2002 was a dud and Natural Gas is now down about 800% from the 2002 peak. I figured I saved no more than $200 over the 20 years I had the Goodman and spent about $2500 in repairs costs. Hopefully I will have better luck with my Chinese built Lennox, then the Texas built Goodman!