This past winter, I lived a nightmare scenario.
All week long, the weather issued a winter storm warning.
I did everything I could to prepare, or so I thought. I stocked up on food and made sure I wouldn’t need to leave the house much. I intended to work remotely and lay low throughout the duration of the storm, which was supposed to last about 3 days. On the first day of the storm, I watched movies and curled up on the couch until it was time for bed. When I woke up the next day, my house was freezing! I went down to the basement and found that the furnace was silent and cold. It had somehow turned off. I tried everything to get it back on, but I don’t know much about how to operate a furnace. I called every heating and cooling company in town, and they were all swamped with other emergency calls from the storm. The earliest maintenance appointment I could schedule was two days away. The roads were in awful shape, so I couldn’t leave to go stay with a friend. I was out of luck. I found an old space heater in storage that I pulled out. I spent the next two days in layers in front of the small space heater. I turned on the oven for added heat. I drank endless amounts of hot water. It was brutal, but I made it through. Eventually, the HVAC appointment finally came and I was able to warm my house back up again.