It was still early fall, but the temperatures were near freezing, and we had to turn the furnace on.
Two years earlier, we had some remodeling done in our home, and the only thing the contractor did we hadn’t requested was to remove the fireplace.
I knew the fireplace needed some work, but I would have rather had it repaired than removed. Unfortunately, we weren’t there when they removed the fireplace, or my husband would have stopped them. Now, instead of using the fireplace on these cool days, we had to use the furnace. Neither of us had thought to check the oil in the tank when we turned the furnace on. I was thinking we had the oil tank filled early in the spring, and it should still be filled, but I wasn’t thinking how the boiler furnace also heated our water. We had gone through almost a full tank of oil over the last six months. When we turned the furnace on, it ran for the next two weeks, until the weather warmed up a bit. The next time we turned the furnace on, we knew it wouldn’t be turned off until late spring. The furnace thought differently. We had it on this time, for two days, and the furnace stopped. I called the HVAC company, and they sent someone to the house within 24 hours. It took him less than five minutes to tell us the furnace wouldn’t run without fuel. I was embarrassed, but I still picked up the phone and call the fuel company while my husband paid the HVAC technician for his time.