I’m generally pretty laid back.

I wouldn’t consider myself lazy, but I suppose I can see how some people may throw that label at me. I don’t think it’s entirely fair – it’s just that with a lot of things, I prefer to take a wait and see approach. You know, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

My wife, on the other hand, is much more of a by-the-books person. Oil changes every 5,000km, tosses food one second beyond the ‘best before’ date, and follows recipes to the exact measurements. None of this is bad, of course, but our differing approaches can sometimes cause tension.

So when she wanted to have our furnace inspected shortly after we moved in – even though it was ‘working fine’ in my opinion – I grumbled. After a move, there’s always a lot of miscellaneous expenses, and we’ve had our fair share since our latest move. I just didn’t feel that the furnace was something we needed to ‘waste’ money on, especially as we’re nearing the end of winter anyway.

Well, thankfully she persisted, and last Thursday we had Doug from Craig Heating and Plumbing come out to do a service call. Immediately after looking at our furnace, the first thing Doug said was ‘how did this ever pass inspection?’ It was obvious that we weren’t in for anything good.

His ‘inspection’ comment referred to the octopus-tentacled mess of duct work we had coming off of our furnace, but then he dealt me another blow with a remark about the drum-style of our furnace and how they don’t make these anymore due to the myriad of problems with them.

We knew when we bought the house that the furnace was old, but never realized that it was about 8-10 years beyond it’s life expectancy. So when Doug started taking the furnace apart to have a good look, I figured he would say that we were living on borrowed time with the furnace and that we should think about replacing it in the next year or so.

To my surprise, Doug discovered a crack in the heat exchanger. Not knowing what this meant, I was shocked when he explained that a crack in the heat exchanger means that Carbon Monoxide is likely to be leaking out. And floored, when Doug said that he had to shut down our furnace immediately! Thankfully we have CO detectors, and none had tripped since we’ve been here, but obviously this isn’t something we want to play around with.

Now, we’re not sure how long this crack had been there, or how much – if any CO had leaked out, but with his experience and knowledge (and a nudge from his liability insurance), he recognized we were facing a potentially catastrophic situation. And, of course, that it wouldn’t be 1-2 years before the furnace needed to be replaced, but it was something we had to now do right away!

Anyway, making a long story short, Doug and his brother Barry throughly inspected and assessed our situation, came up with a plan to un-do all of the mistakes with the system from previous technicians, and ensure that our home and health would be taken care of.

Doug & Barry informed us that we’d probably need to be without heat for a few days. And, with a warm front coming for the weekend, this wasn’t too bad. We were fine with using the fireplace and extra blankets for heat, especially if it meant eliminating the risk of Carbon Monoxide poisoning. And so we hunkered down for a chilly – but not too bad – evening.

But amazingly, Craig Heating & Plumbing called us the next day and told us that they could come to replace the furnace on Saturday – and at no extra charge for working a weekend! They arrived exactly on time, did a wonderful job, and set us up for 20-ish years of not having to worry about our furnace.

And this is all thanks to the proactive mindset of my wife who routinely thinks about service and maintenance of things, and is a perfect compliment to my lack of proactiveness with things like this. Despite my laissez-faire attitude, I have no problem admitting I’m wrong, and in this instance getting the furnace inspected was a great thing. Thanks Honey!