Welp, We Had Some Pros Come Out To Look at Our Boiler & Radiators

First off, please allow me to share with you that today's high is only 65. 65 is also the temperature our boiler kicks on at. 

It is 66 degrees in the Professor Haus as I type so the radiators should kick on pretty soon and I am pretty nervous/excited about it. 

It seems like a strange thing to be excited about, doesn't it? Welp, I told y'all I love the mundanity of things. This is a perfect example. 

Let me give you a bit of Jacki history so you know all about my experiences with cold. 

I was born in the wilds of Kansas City, Missouri and lived there for some amount of time. We moved a lot before I was in school, so in between my birth and my schoolin' I lived in: Missouri, Colorado, Ohio, Texas and then back to Missouri for kindergarten. 

Mid-way through 1st grade we moved to Georgia, first Lawrenceville and then Social Circle when I hit 8th grade. Then Florida in 1997 and here I am in Michigan. 

As you can see, I've been through some weather. The problem is, I don't remember anything but hurricanes. 

So, as the fall and cooler temperatures approached, I wanted to have a pro come out and look at our boiler and radiators. 1. Because the boiler looks like something from an 80s horror movie and 2. Because I didn't know how any of it worked at all. 

And 3. Because I didn't know what was safe to put on the pretty radiator shelves. 

I tried multiple times to get someone out here to look at our system, but so many people either simply didn't respond or do not work on radiators. For like an entire month I tried. 

So I made a post in one of my lil Melvindale facebook groups outlining exactly what I was looking for. I got two responses. One was from a service provider, which I responded to and reached out immediately. 

The other was from a person with a very generic name and no profile pic. I did not contact them. 

I had a lot of hopes for the service provider that responded so I gave them a week to respond. They did - once, but then did not again, ever again. 

So, I sucked it up and send a message to the no profile pic person, sure it was a scam or similar. 

They responded almost immediately and we arranged for them to come out to see us and teach us about our scary boiler and gorgeous radiatiors. 

They arrived promptly and asked to see our thermostat. Now, I'm gonna say something here that might sound ageist or whatever, but it is what it is. 

As you can expect, I was nervous for the Boiler Man to arrive. What if they were big or scary or rob-y? Or worse, what if they tried to talk down to me and make me feel stupid for not knowing anything about this behemoth of ancient technology. 

Y'all, the sweetest old guy showed up and treated me like his granddaughter. He brought a helper with him as well. The helper was just as old and some sort of boiler expert. I mean, he was SCHOOLIN' the other Boiler Man. 

And here is the possibly ageist thing - I was really happy that we got an older Boiler Man. Because he has a literal lifetime of experience on the equipment in my house. It's not a novelty to him - he knows what to do with it. 

One of the things I was worried about is that we'd get some young whippersnapper up in here who had never seen a boiler as old as ours before and would not even be sure themselves if it were working properly or not. 

The best part? He (and his Boiler Buddy) said our system is great, has been excellently maintained for as long as it's existed. He showed me how to make sure the radiators in each room were working and showed Mickey some fiddly bits with the boiler itself. 

Which is good, cause we're gonna need it this week. 

Oh and I can "Put anything not paper" on the radiator shelves. Huzzah!