My mom woke me out of a sound sleep last week.
She told me it was cold in the house, and she needed to have her furnace repaired.
I never turned my mom down when she had an emergency, and going without heat is an emergency. Dad had a lot of health issues, and I worried about letting them go without HVAC for very long. I got my wife up, and told her I was going to my parent’s house to repair their furnace. She was up and dressed before I was. She wanted to make sure they were okay, and she was going with me. When we got to the house, every light was on, and mom was standing at the door waiting for me. When I got inside, it was frigid. She had her coat on over her robe and dad was sleeping on the sofa with a space heater near him. After fifteen minutes, I knew the furnace couldn’t be repaired. We needed a new furnace for the house. My wife was already packing their clothing to take with us and they would stay in the spare room until I could replace their furnace. We knew this could lead to frozen pipes, so I wrapped the pipes with heat tape and we headed out. It took nearly two weeks to get a furnace and have it installed. I would stop every evening after work to make sure everything was okay and make sure the pipes were okay. By the time mom and dad went home, the furnace was installed, and the house was more comfortable than it had been in a couple of years.