When I realized the temperature was dropping, it didn’t take long for me to call the HVAC company.
The first thing they asked me was if my thermostat was working. The light was on the display and I was pretty sure that meant something, but the temperature was only sixty degrees in the house. I tried turning the thermostat up, but nothing happened. I thought that if the battery was dead, I wouldn’t have a display reading, so I naturally assumed there was something wrong with the furnace. They sent an HVAC technician to the house, and he checked the thermostat. He changed the batteries, but nothing changed. He then went downstairs to look at the furnace. After almost half an hour, the heat wasn’t turning on, and he was back upstairs. He said he was going out to the service van to get a new thermostat. Even though the batteries weren’t dead, sometimes a thermostat would quit working. He brought in a new programmable thermostat and replaced the old thermostat with the new one. Within seconds, the furnace was working again. I couldn’t believe a thermostat would make that much difference. I thanked him for coming to the house so quickly and asked for the bill. The only thing he charged me for was the new thermostat, and he took time to show me how to program it. I was so grateful that I gave him a tip for coming to the house. He tried to refuse it but I said if he didn’t take the money I was going to call the HVAC company and tell them he forgot to leave the bill.