Bursting in January Splendor

My  husband really loves it when I wake him up extra early and request his, ah, manly assistance.

This morning at 5AM, you might say that I had needs.

I leaned in close to the pillow on which his snoring head lay, and jarred him awake with words I knew he'd hear echoing in his ears all day long:  "Honey...there's no hot water in the kitchen sink. I think a pipe is frozen."

He spent the next 45-minutes in the basement aiming a blowdryer at a pipe buried in the nether regions of a back wall.

Ah yes. Good times.

Six years ago, during our first January in Connecticut, our furnace malfunctioned and nearly exploded through the house and into the stratosphere. We were away at the time, in Boston, trying to hold it together while our son had two extremely delicate eye surgeries within five days.

We arrived home from Boston on a frigid Friday night to an unusually hot house.

My husband commanded me to stay in the kitchen while he  descended into the basement to investigate. He returned moments later with a very Houston-sounding, "We have a problem."

Apparently, our furnace was red-hot. A red-hot furnace is definitely "a problem."

I walked out the door and into the night, negotiating ice-covered sidewalks while carrying my then-infant son, still swaddled in post-surgical gauze and hazy from anesthesia, to my next door neighbor's house.

When they opened their door, I began hysterically blubbering. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

Moments later, a cadre of firetrucks, police cars, and vehicles driven by volunteer firefighters came roaring up my street.

Our furnace was subsequently shut off and the house began to cool.

And cool.

And cool.

My son and I absconded to my in-laws' house in Rhode Island while my husband bundled up and stayed to deal with the oil company, who planned to dismantle the old furnace and install a brand new one the next day.

Unfortunately, before they could get started, all our water pipes froze.

And then burst. Flooding the entire basement.

Ah yes. Good times.

No such excitement on this similarly frigid morning six years later.

Just the hassle of a mildly frozen pipe, a telltale sign -  like daffodils in April - that January has arrived.

Comments

[LifeAsIKnowIt]

Oh, how awful! Just reading that furnace story got me a little shaky with worry for you...
Yeah, you know it's winter in new england when your pipes start to freeze. Good times, indeed!
Here's hoping for an early spring.

[Pinks & Blues Girls]

WInters in New England... so much fun! Unfortunately, I'm more equipped to handle those types of scenarios than my husband. He's just... not a handyman. Of course, my solution is just to call one! :)

Jane, Pinks & Blues

[Patty]

Um, I think I am glad that here in the dear old South, the only thing I have to worry about breaking in the Arctic blast we have had this week, is my car... ;)

[Major Bedhead]

I was out last night at a friend's house and frozen pipes were a topic of conversation for 20 minutes. Those are the times when I'm really glad I'm no longer a home owner.