Car Free in Raleigh

So a week or so ago, our heater stopped working. We bought a space heater, called a repairman, and were given an estimate of $380 to fix it.

We called around, found another repairman, and he met us at our place today. Well, apparently Repair Man #1 did not look inside the unit, because when Repair Man #2 did, we all clearly saw that it was a mess inside. Corroded, dilapidated, and if just the broken part was replaced, would leak carbon monoxide into the house. Being that it’s already over a decade old, it needs to be replaced entirely.

Which will cost $5,000. Which we are not prepared to spend this month, and don’t particularly want to finance.

So tomorrow morning, we will trek up to Lowe’s (via bus route 1) and buy two larger space heaters. We plan to give that a try for a day or two, and see if it heats the place sufficiently. For $100 and a higher electric bill, it may just do the trick and get us through this winter. It’s hard to justify dropping five grand on a new heating unit when you live in a place that winter lasts three months.

(It’s been 55 degrees inside the house… and outside the house, for that matter… for the last week. The tiny space heater works fine to keep our bedroom toasty at night, but it’s no match for the whole house. Consequently, I have been baking many, many muffins. If I could just figure out how to re-route the dryer vent into the house, we’d have plenty of heat, considering the number of cloth diapers we wash and dry each week!)