The Joys of Home Ownership
Posted on January 19, 2024 by Ching under Home Ownership, Relationship.
We were having problems with our Nest thermostat over the weekend. The furnace kept shutting on and off and the thermostat display showed this error message. It would cut out and then turn back on but our biggest problem was that we didn’t know how to make it come back on when it would turn off and it just did it randomly so we really didn’t know when it would be working and not. It was both temperamental and unpredictable.
Anyway, we decided to call one of our friends who referred us to one of his BNI acquaintances who specialized in this sort of thing. But it was Monday – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – night so Chad (tech/service guy) said he could come out but it would be overtime. Well, I am way too cheap for that so Brian and I decided to tough it out and have him come out the next day.
Well, on Tuesday morning we woke up to a 55 degree house and the Nest thermostat display was all black – no error message or anything, it was just completely blank. Brian thought the thermostat had finally gone kaput. I’m like, “No way! That thermostat is only six years old and they’re supposed last ten.”
We didn’t really know what was wrong so we called Chad but Chad couldn’t come out until the afternoon because he already had appointments scheduled for that day. In the meantime, we were in the midst of the coldest days in January so we turned on the electric fireplace downstairs, the gas fireplace upstairs, and I moved our little space heater to the living room to help bring the temperature up in the house. I figured that should get me by until we can get the furnace/heating issue resolved. Brian went in to his office and they have heat there so it was mostly just me freezing to death. I decided to work from home on Tuesday so I could let Chad in the house when he did arrive.
Around lunch time, the Nest thermostat kicks back on again. The furnace comes on and everything seems to be working as normal. Of course, we still want to Chad to come because we can just have the furnace randomly turn on and off, specially when we don’t know how to get it back on. That’s just not going to work.
A little bit later, Brian tells me he is on his way home because Chad is on his way to our house. Brian is completely convinced the thermostat is broken (either that or he just really wanted a new one) so he stops by Lowe’s and buys a $250 Ecobee. Chad fixes the furnace and replaces the Nest with the new Ecobee. When I get the low down from Brian (it turns out there’s some kind of sensor on the furnace that has rusted out due to condensation) and realize the reason the thermostat was going off and on was because the furnace was going off and on, I am livid. I’m like, “Why did we buy a new thermostat when there was nothing wrong with our thermostat?”
I felt like we could have saved ourselves the expense. Plus, I’m thinking we’re probably going to pay the labor for having Chad install the new thermostat when we didn’t have to replace our existing thermostat to begin with because there was nothing wrong with it. I just couldn’t get over how wasteful it all seemed.
Looking back, it was interesting to me how I was overwhelmed with feelings of anger, irritation, and frustration every time I looked at the new Ecobee thermostat whereas every time I looked at our new faucet, which we spent about $300 on, I was filled with so much joy and appreciation. The amount we spent was about the same – the thermostat actually cost less. I believe the two things elicited different feelings in me because I felt the faucet was necessary and Brian painstakingly installed it himself; while the new thermostat was a completely unnecessary expense. We could have used the $250 to pay Chad who we still needed to pay.
I felt like we could have avoided having to buy a new thermostat by asking two simple things, “Is our thermostat broken? And, do we need to replace it?” The answers would have been no and no, and we could have saved ourselves $250. But we don’t ask questions. We just spend money because that’s what we do.
I was so annoyed that I actually picked a fight with Brian about this, which I immediately regretted. Well, maybe not immediately. I was still kind of pissed off when I went to bed but then came to my senses when I woke up in the morning. In the grand scheme of things, this is a really stupid thing to be pissed off about. Yes, we spent $500 that we did not expect to spend when we probably could have gotten by with spending half that but it’s a stupid thing to fight about.
I realize now that Brian’s intention was not to “waste” money. He was unhappy with our old thermostat (even though it still worked) much like I was unhappy with the old faucet (that was also working perfectly fine) and so he wanted to replace it. I think the main difference between the two scenarios is that we were aligned on replacing the faucet but we were not aligned on the thermostat expense.
My key takeaways from this:
- We won’t always agree on everything but I think we at least need to make an effort to get alignment before making decisions.
- Brian gives me grace when I screw up – not saying he screwed up but rather he made a different choice than I would have – so I need to allow him the same.
- Brian tries so hard to make our lives better and doesn’t deserve me questioning his judgement every step of the way.
- I was wrong to pick a fight over this. Brian and I have always prided ourselves with being very rational and approaching everything sensibly and I was completely irrational in this situation. If I had to psychoanalyze myself, I think I would have concluded that I was pissed of and frustrated about other things and this just happened to be thing that I could blow up about.
- I just need to be better.
I don’t always apologize because I feel like I’m usually right (LOL) but I did apologize for how I reacted. I hope he knows that the apology was sincere and I do regret my actions. Seriously, though. We haven’t had a fight in over ten years. I wouldn’t have thought it would be over this. What a stupid thing to fight over!
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