Last week I renewed my appreciation of indoor heating after my newly purchased furnace gave up the ghost. ‘Twas the day before Christmas, early in the morning when I discovered that the unit was completely silent, no matter how I tried to revive it. Time to call for help.

The lone repairman on call that day arrived, diagnosed and announced that the inducer pump motor had failed. Of course, it being the day before Christmas, he doubted he’d be able to find a replacement, especially since it was “very unusual for that pump to fail.” Accepting my chilly fate and not wanting him to spend his day running around in search of a pump, I told him I could wait until after the holiday.

Now came the test —could I really wait? Day one was bearable. Layered with turtleneck and fleece and moving about, I managed to stay warm. But each subsequent day felt more like survival, especially as the house bled heat overnight. Slowly the thermostat tumbled downward from 60 to 58 to a low of 51 on the fifth and final day of being without central heating. Firing up an open oven helped somewhat, but gas gets expensive so that wasn’t a longterm option.

The day after Christmas, I tried to renew the search for a replacement pump. It turned out that the company had one person on call that stormy day and I was too far down on the list of heat-challenged people to get help. The next day, the part was supposedly ordered from Sacramento via overnight air, but no one seemed to know if or when it would really arrive. Eventually, someone must have given up on Sacramento because the repairman who finally installed the replacement pump said he cannibalized it from a furnace sitting in a local warehouse.

The new pump is happily doing its job and I no longer have to think about which pieces of furniture to burn.

Oh, yes. Did I mention that less than a week before the inducer pump failed, a different pump (the condensator) decided it was also time to quit? Fortunately, that pump was easily replaced as the repairman had one in his truck.

After two mechanical failures on a brand new furnace, I’m a little leary about its reliability. It will have to earn my trust over the upcoming winter days and nights. Nonetheless, in a world where too many people don’t have access to basic creature comforts, I’m grateful to have any heat at all.