hindsight

"If you had known, when we first saw this house, everything you know now - would you still have wanted to buy it?" asked Aaron after the heating and cooling guy had left us with his quote.

What we know now (among other things) is why the fire started. It turns out that the electric baseboard heaters that only a few blog posts ago were merely an annoyance are actually a bit of a hazard.

The day before the heating and cooling guy gave us his quote, we had an electrician come check things out. He determined that our heaters are very old and very large; so large that the wattage of the heaters exceeded the capacity of the thermostat, which is what caused the thermostat to catch on fire. He gave us two options - replace the heaters with newer more efficient ones (in addition to being old and big, he found that many of them had frayed wires), or install a high efficiency electric furnace. He also recommended replacing the electrical panel, as the current one is over forty years old and is meant for commercial (not residential) use. He suspects the previous owners installed it to accommodate the giant (electricity sucking) heaters.

"You don't have kids, right?" Mr. Electric asked Aaron. "With no kids in the house, I would just swap out the heaters." When Aaron explained that we are expecting a baby in less than a month, Mr. Electric gave him the number of the furnace guy.

So while we hadn't expected to undertake this particular project when we bought the house, there are a few silver linings: all of the duct work from the original furnace is still in place, so the job won't be nearly as expensive as it could have been; with a furnace and re-connected duct work we can now install central air, which will be a welcome treat this summer when I am home all day with our tiny human; we will no longer have to worry about tiny fingers getting burned by the scorching hot metal heaters, which is something that we had just realized could be an issue; and finally, we are optimistic that next winter's heating costs will be lower.

Like all first-time parents, we have a list of things to get before the baby arrives: crib, car seat, stroller. It's just that our list also includes an electrical panel and a new heating and cooling system, which is scheduled to be installed 6 days before our due date.

And if you're wondering how I answered Aaron's question from the top of this post, it was an unequivocal yes. Despite all the challenges, I still would have bought this house. Because it's home.