Well the Plumbing & Heating guy was here for the morning cleaning out my furnace again 2 months after her cleaned it out the last time. We had to call him on Xmas Eve the first time because the furnace backed up into the house in the middle of the night. Boy did that stink. Turns out that the other guy that used to “service” the boiler never did anything but change a filter and charged me $100. This guy showed us what the pipes etc. looked like and they were packed with soot.

Now he warned me after he spent almost 5 hours on Xmas Eve wire brushing and vacuuming out the boiler that it may need it again in a couple of months and low and behold I smelled that nasty smell again and made the call. He checked it out this morning with a diagnostic tester he has and turns out we weren’t getting any draft up the chimney at all. The idiots that installed the furnace 6 years ago took out the damper and didn’t put in a new one. We have a 3 story chimney that just will not draw up the smoke without some help. Our furnace was running at 52% efficiency. Ouch! Do you know what that means as far as how much money we’ve burned up on oil?

So anyway, he cleans it out. I can hear the wire brush scraping away and the Shop Vac running and finally after 4 hours he’s done. He comes upstairs where the kids and I are, covered in soot, and hands me the bill. $250. *gulp* I know that’s really not much at all for 4 hours of work but my GOD that’s a lot of money to us :crazy: The other problem is that the chimney desperately needs to be cleaned out. The upside? This guy needs a new windshield in his truck, my husband works for a glass shop, so he’s willing to work out a trade of some sorts, windshield installation for cleaning 2 chimneys. I love the barter system.