We went up to our cabin this past weekend and walked in to discover that for the third time in eighteen months we had experienced a complete boiler failure.
The details on all of this bore me at this point so I’ll try to give the short history for those who don’t know it:
- In April 2022 we arrived at the cabin to discover the old 1970s boiler was not working, and would not turn on. Luckily it hadn’t been super cold recently, there was no damage beyond the boiler itself, and we had a brand new boiler installed before the end of May that year.
- In December 2022 we arrived at the cabin to discover that our new boiler had completely failed and the cabin had been without heat for several days during a deep freeze. There was massive damage throughout the cabin: radiators had burst everywhere, the toilet tank had cracked in half, plumbing throughout the cabin was destroyed, and the cast iron well pump had cracked in half. This was a total disaster, the cabin was unusable, and we did not get everything fixed until right before Memorial Day Weekend 2023.
- It is now November 2023 and the boiler isn’t working again despite the fact that we had someone come out and give it a check up just a month ago. My husband–a genius–had mini-split units installed in the bedrooms this year, so we have set those to heat mode and are using those to heat the cabin until someone can come out and look at the stupid boiler.
Anyway, after three boiler failures in a row I did what any normal person would do and upon returning home I immediately googled “how to appease the house spirits” because at this point angry cabin fairies are the only logical explanation for this.
So if you come to my cabin this summer and spot a little jar of honey and little jar of cream on the hearth just know that it’s an offering for the house fairies and that all these boiler issues have caused me to lose my effing mind.