Aardvark Abatement in progress!

[dreamshark]

There are horrible crashes, clangs, and grinding noises coming from the basement as the Aardvark Asbestos Abatement Company destroys our 100-year-old boiler. 

Comments

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

One hopes they're not a subsidiary of Acme...

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Heh.

K.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Are you switching away from fuel oil, too?

K.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. That was the whole point. The thing worked just fine as far as heating the house goes, but feeding it fuel oil had become unbelievably expensive.

[quadong.livejournal.com]

As someone who didn't have to deal with it, I'm going to miss your big scary boiler.

I had no idea you used fuel oil, or that that was even a thing that one could do. How did that work? I assume you had to refill it by hand all the time in the winter.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, carrying in all those 10-gallon cans of fuel oil and pouring them through the funnel was a real drag.

I'm surprised that so many people consider fuel oil to be strange. How else do people who don't live in a city with natural gas connections heat their houses? It's very common on the east coast, even in cities. I'm pretty sure that all the houses I lived in growing up were heated with fuel oil.

Actually, we never filled the furnace with a funnel. We have a 1000-gallon tank buried in the back yard. Twice a year a big oil truck would drive up the alley, run a long hose into the tank, and fill it. When fuel oil was $.89/gallon this wasn't all that bad a way to heat the house. However, fuel oil now costs approximately the same as gasoline. We went through about 1500 gallons a year.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

What will power the new version?

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

There's really only one other choice.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Yes; but you didn't mention anything about installing solar panels.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

How exciting! That's a great name for an abatement company. :)

Just don't ask which one is the "Master Abater." They've heard that joke before.

The new boiler will be much smaller, you'll have more room in your basement.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

*nurk nurk* Probably a good thing that you gave me that joke after the guys had already left. Actually, they have recently changed their name from Aardvark Asbestos Abatement to something so vanilla I can't actually remember it (something that still has the initials AAA but no Aardvarks). I am sad about that. The owner, who came out to do the estimate, was still wearing the shirt with the embroidered aardvark on it.

You're right - the new boiler is so small it practically disappears into the hole in the basement floor left by the old one! It is sleek and pretty and hardly looks up to the job of heating anything. It's not installed yet - just sitting there. The Boiler Guy is coming tomorrow to put it in at the ungodly hour of 7am.