My furnace has taken its usual cue and decided to act up right before Christmas, which has become a tradition that often forces me to spend most of my gift-shopping budget on furnace parts.

This year the situation is weirder than usual, however. During the past two months, every time I’ve been outside and the furnace popped on, a strong odor of chlorine wafted out of the exhaust vent.

It’s puzzling because I very rarely use anything with chlorine in it. I can remember my mother always bleaching the white items in the laundry when I was growing up, but because I’m so pale, I haven’t worn anything white since my wedding day. Also, my furnace runs on propane gas, which smells like hard-boiled eggs, not chlorine.

So because my sense of smell has been messed up ever since I had Covid last year, I just ignored the odor, thinking my nose was playing tricks on me. I mean, sometimes I can smell fresh flowers in the house when the closest thing I have to a flower in here is a fake potted-plant.

But a couple of weeks ago, one of my friends dropped by for a visit and mentioned she’d smelled chlorine when she walked by the vent.

At that point, I figured I was in trouble. I did some research online and the results ranged from “when the furnace pops on, it briefly releases ozone, which smells like chlorine, which is normal,” to "Wires in your furnace’s motor can overheat and smell like chlorine. Call a service technician immediately to avoid a fire!”

I opted to call a service technician…just to be safe…and to prevent my house from becoming a pile of ashes in time for Christmas.

Three technicians later, I still was hearing the same response: “Never heard of such a thing. Have you been using cleaners with bleach in them near the furnace?”

“No. The only smell I have in my basement is mildew.”

Finally, one technician said he would come check things out…in three weeks. By then, I thought, I could become a charcoal briquette. But having no other option, I agreed.

“Do you really want someone to come over to check out your furnace when he’s already admitted he's never even heard of such a problem?" my friend asked me when I updated her. "You're leaving yourself wide open for him to charge you for a bunch of stuff you don’t even need. He’s probably leafing through a how-to manual at this very minute so he can make a list of parts.”

“Well, I’m hoping he at least will be able to tell me if the wires are overheating,” I said.

“And if they aren’t,” she said, "he'll find some other reason for the odor, even if he has to invent something, just to make a sale.”

She wasn’t exactly filling me with optimism.

Anyway, as I await the technician's visit and his verdict, I once again find myself afraid to spend any more money on Christmas gifts in case I do have to pay for some expensive furnace part(s). And this leads me to suffer a bad case of déjà vu.

Below is a newspaper column I wrote back in late November of 2005, to show you what I mean. Back then, I lived in a different house and had an oil furnace, but it doesn’t matter. Some things never change...

THE COLD SHOULDER

Two weeks ago, I got out of bed on a chilly Saturday morning, padded out to the living room and turned up the thermostat to 68 degrees. I then waited for the familiar sound of the furnace kicking on.

Nothing happened.

I cranked up the thermostat to 80. Still nothing.

I opened my mouth to shout to my sleeping husband, but then changed my mind. First, I decided, I would try everything possible to get the furnace to pop on. If I failed, then, and only then, would I wake up Rip Van Breslin.

First I checked the oil tank. The gauge said it was half full. Then I checked the circuit breakers. They were fine. Finally, I hit the furnace’s reset button. Nothing happened. There was only one thing left to do…write two obituaries – one for the furnace and one for myself…if I dared to wake up my husband on a Saturday morning.

In a last-ditch effort, I called my cousin, a heating/refrigeration technician, and asked for advice. He ran through the list of everything I’d already done, then said there was one more thing I could try.

“You know those two screws on the motor that are holding the wires down? Well, sometimes you can jump-start the furnace if you take a pair of needle-nose pliers and touch the two screws with them at the same time.”

“Won’t I get a shock if I do that?” I asked.

“Yeah, but it will only be a mild one.”

I woke up my husband.

“We’re not calling a repairman till Monday,” he said after he tried and failed to get the furnace to pop on. “They charge double, even triple on weekends. I’d rather wear a hat and long-johns around the house than pay all of that extra money for nothing. Besides that, the furnace is practically new. It can’t be broken!”

“Well, I hate to say it,” I said, “but the blue tint on my lips and my teeth chattering like castanets are a pretty good indication it just might be!”

So all weekend, I suffered with a frozen nose and a bloated bladder (from drinking 400 cups of hot tea to keep my body from stiffening up).

The repairman arrived on Monday afternoon and spent a lot of time fiddling with the furnace. At one point, he actually got it to pop on, only to have it drop dead again. This continued until he finally got so frustrated, he muttered a few things under his breath and called for backup. Another repairman arrived within 15 minutes.

Together, the two of them stared at the furnace as if it were a UFO. “I think it’s the heat sensor,” one of them said. “And let’s change the nozzle, just to be safe.”

An hour later, the familiar sound of the furnace running filled the house, followed by the long-awaited blast of warm air. I removed my scarf and earmuffs.

“That should take care of it,” one of the repairmen said. “If not, be sure to give us a call.”

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, bracing myself for cardiac arrest.

He shrugged. “You’ll get a bill in the mail.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Visions of them leisurely sipping coffee and taking extra time to add every little nut, bolt and screw to my bill, filled my head. Christmas shopping, I decided, would have to be put on hold until that bill arrived.

A week later, I still hadn’t received the bill, so I got up that morning with every intention of calling the billing office and asking about my balance. First, however, I turned up the heat.

The furnace made three loud booming sounds, then coughed and died. The strong smell of oil began to fill the house. The furnace struggled to pop on again but only made a helicopter sound. I, picturing my house going airborne and landing somewhere in Munchkin Land, dashed to the furnace’s emergency shut-off switch and flipped it. Then I called the repairman.

I was put on hold for 45 minutes.

There have been only a few times in my life when I’ve been really angry, like the time I found out that my supposedly sick boyfriend actually had taken my best friend to a drive-in movie, but I honestly can say that after minute number 35 on hold, I was feeling just about that angry. In fact, I was so hot under the collar, I didn’t even need the dumb furnace.

The same repairman arrived two hours later. This time, he decided it was a clogged fuel line. Maybe it was sediment from the bottom of the tank, he said. Or maybe it was a kink in the line. Or maybe it was air in the line. Or maybe it was a clump of jellified oil.

I was waiting for him to say that maybe a rattlesnake had crawled up into it and died, but he stopped talking and set to work clearing the line.

The furnace, knock on wood, has been purring like a kitten ever since.

And I’m still waiting for both repair bills.

I have the sneaking suspicion I’ll be doing all of my Christmas shopping at Dollar Tree this year.

# # #

Sally Breslin is a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net

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