Brr.

For the record, I'd just like to state that I*rving home heating blows dead goats.

Today was a rather average kind of day. Until I got home, that is.

When I'm at work, I turn down the thermostat. When I get home, I turn it up again. When I got home after work tonight it was almost 10 pm. I made some dinner. I did some dishes. Then I wondered why I was so cold. Oh yeah! I didn't turn up the heat--16.5*C isn't really all that warm. So I headed over to the thermostat. It's digital, so very easy to read and adjust. It tells me to the tenth of a degree what the actual temperature is inside the house, and allows me to program it to the half a degree. I cranked it up to 20*C--where I I like to keep it when I'm home--and went to see what was doing online.

After about 20 minutes, I was still cold so I went to the thermostat and noticed that it was actually COLDER inside the house than it had been 20 minutes earlier. This was odd. So I cranked the temperature up to 23*C. I listened for the furnace to kick in. It did not. Uh oh.

The insurance inspector guy was here this morning, so I figured I'd double check to see if he'd accidentally done something to the furnace. I saw that the pilot light was not on. I checked the oil gauge on the tank. EMPTY. Fuckers. I'm supposed to be on automatic replenishment. I'm NEVER supposed to run out of oil, because they're supposed to fill the tank BEFORE IT GETS EMPTY.

Fuckers.

Anyway, at 11:00 pm I called the 1-800 number. Patrick promised to dispatch the oil truck immediately, and that the oil truck driver would do a Bleed&Start on my oil tank when he got here. He apologized profusely for letting me run out of oil. At 11:00 pm when I called, it was 15.6*C inside my house.

I was exhausted at this point, and wanted to be in bed asleep--not waiting for the oil man. I have to work at 7AM. I am going to Halifax right after work. I need to be asleep. But I waited.

And waited.

And at 1:00 I decided I was impatient, and phoned again. Jeffrey told me the driver had been dispatched and was in transit. At 1:48 the truck showed up. And he wasn't able to fill up the tank.

The whistle doesn't work on my oil filler pipe. So he wasn't supposed to put any oil in it. Which is likely what happened on the 8th of December, when they filled (and billed!) me a whopping 5.8 litres. I thought it was petty when I got the invoice, but I figured that with a big storm coming up, I must have had plenty of oil and they were saving it for someone who really needed it. Apparently my logic was flawed.

Apparently, the whistle wasn't working, so they weren't allowed to fill the tank. The guy who was here THAT time, just didn't bother to tell anybody. He must have been the same guy that was supposed to inspect my oil tank before the first fill and didn't, but told them that he did. He must also have been the same guy that then did NOT start my oil tank after I ran out of oil the last time--but told the oil company that he had.

Anyway, they gave me 57 litres for tonight, and started the furnace. It was sooo nice to see the temperature start to climb again! The boy who did it was nice, he put in a service call right away--before he even came inside to start the furnace! I'm the first stop on the service tech's day tomorrow. Which is all great and good, but I have to be at work at 7. So if they need to come inside the house for some reason, they'll have to call me to get someone to run over some keys. Idjits. My contract with them has been nothing but trouble so far. Thankfully they're smart enough to hire a few really great associates that make me not absolutely want to fire-bomb their offices. I'm just sayin'.

At least the furnace is on now, and I'll be warm until breakfast. I just wish that Billy Elliot hadn't been on TV while I was waiting, because now I don't want to go to sleep, even though I have to be up in just 3 and a half hours! Oh well. Plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead.

G'night folks!