When the furnace quits before the Bulldogs game.

First, safety

If you smell gas, leave the house and call Nicor Gas or 911 from outside. If a carbon monoxide detector is sounding, do the same. Nothing on this page matters until that is handled.

If the furnace has simply stopped and the house is getting cold, you have more time than it feels like. Pipes in an occupied house with the water running do not freeze in an afternoon.

Before you sign tonight

One estimate and a deadline is the worst position to buy from. Two phone calls tomorrow morning, to companies on the Village licensed list for that trade, will tell you whether the number in your hand is normal. Most will give you a ballpark over the phone for a straight replacement.

Fewer contractors have room in a cold snap, so the second opinion may come with a longer wait. That is still worth knowing before you commit fifteen years of equipment.

A $400 repair and an April replacement

Many winter “replacements” begin as a failed igniter, a bad flame sensor, or a tripped pressure switch. Those are repairs measured in hundreds of dollars, not thousands, and they can buy you weeks or years.

If the contractor who came out recommended replacement, it is fair to ask two questions: what specifically failed, and what would it cost to repair just that? A contractor who says “the heat exchanger is cracked” should be able to show you. A contractor who says “it is old and not worth fixing” has given you an opinion, not a diagnosis.

A $400 repair followed by a planned replacement in April is very often the better outcome than a replacement bought in a cold kitchen.

Buying well in a 58 degree kitchen

A cold house is a high-pressure sales environment whether anyone intends it or not. A few things hold up even when you have no time.

• Get the model numbers. Furnace, condenser, coil. Thirty seconds, and it makes the estimate checkable.
• Get the cash price and the labor warranty in years. Both, separately, in writing.
• Ask what the “tonight only” price is tomorrow. The honest answer is usually “the same.”
• Ask if a repair would get you through the week.
• Pause for one night. Twenty-four hours does not change the equipment or the price. It changes the decision.

Getting through the week, Priory Park optional

Two or three electric space heaters, used safely and never on extension cords, will hold the occupied rooms of most River Forest houses well above freezing. Close doors to rooms you are not using. Let the kitchen and bathroom taps drip if the forecast drops below zero. A hotel night on Harlem or a few days at a relative’s costs a few hundred dollars. A rushed five-figure decision can cost far more, for fifteen years.