Dead furnace

It's official, the furnace it dead. Like soot on the basement floor with the stench of burning oil dead. On Sunday morning we were smelling the fumes a bit more and I grumbled about not being able to take it much longer. We went ahead with our day as usual and went over to our friends house for an Easter feast with fun activities for the kids. Their egg hunt was fun. They had camouflage eggs hidden in the yard. Thankfully they also had a map of where all the eggs had been hidden. I'd never be that organized and we'd never find all the eggs. Anyway, fun was had by all and the eatin' was great too!

Dan went back to the house early with Simon while I stayed with the other two kids. Apparently they could smell the fumes from the house before they even opened the door! He shut off the furnace immediately and opened windows and doors. Here's where all the fun begins. It was only 47 degrees outside and we had to air out the house. I came home a few hours later with one of John and Tiff's space heaters to add to our own. I couldn't believe how bad it smelled. It was awful. And it was freezing.

We ate dinner at McDonald's just to get out of there. Then we went home packed up some stuff and went to my moms over night. I was nervous about the kids being in the house with the horrid fumes. Thanks, Mom!

So here we are with a completed dead furnace, no heat and cool weather. We have oil heat too. I don't know about you but I really don't like oil. I don't like the massive tank full with 275 gallons of oil sitting under my porch. I don't like how it runs out sometimes or how you HAVE the the furnace cleaned yearly due to the dirty build up. It stinks. I'd also love to have a gas stove one of these days. They are so much nicer to cook on.

Now we have a chance to convert to natural gas! Awesome right...

Ok, now this is really fun part. We could get a new oil furnace put in tomorrow if we want. No issues, it'd be put in.

Gas on the other hand we have to get a line run to the foundation of the house. First I had to find out if there were gas lines in the street. Yes. Next, will the town let us get a permit to dig up the road? No, the street was recently paved it can't be dug up for 5 years! How about the other street since we live on a corner lot? It's not a town street it's a county road. Another phone call to find out if there's gas out there. Yes. Another call this time to the county. Will the county let us dig? Yes. Ok. Now for the next round of fun! Finding out how much a new gas furnace will cost... almost double because they have to run the lines in the house, install the furnace and remove our old oil tank.

The best part..

It would take 6-8 weeks to go through all the approval and permit BS to get the gas line run to our house.

AAAAHHHHH!!!

Is it worth it? Is gas that much better than oil?