I had hoped that 2025 and the catastrophe of major projects that it turned into was behind me, and in a way, I suppose it is, as the last few weeks could have been worse, but I gotta say, I’m tired of adulting.

The coal furnace and I have a history. Literally from the day Steve died, it has been a thorn in my side. It had always been his domain, and remembering to fill up the barrel and change the ash tub became a sudden necessity immediately.

It was one of those responsibilities that I really wanted to share with the family, mainly because I usually remembered to do it when I woke up and could see my breath in the morning. But, after a few too many cold showers, I decided that it would probably be best if I just made it my responsibility. I’ve had a few misses, but for the most part have kept it going, sometimes just barely.

For the last year or two, I felt like we’d gotten into a pretty good routine, although it got pretty temperamental in the summer. But, as I usually do to myself, I took two steps forward, and about 10 back. Thanks to the Great Well Debacle of 2025, I had to have an entirely new pump system installed, and a new well dug. This presented a minor tweak to the system.

Then, I finally replaced some heating pipes that had been broken for a long time and got the hot water heat to a quarter of the house repaired. So long space heaters and just accepting the cold! However, it was another minor tweak to the heating system that I thought I knew.

And then came the cold. Well, that did it. Extreme demand, plus the minor tweaks, and the furnace and I were strangers once again. That’s the tricky part about coal. It’s not just, “oh, it’s a little chilly, maybe I should put on another sweater” level inconvenience. It’s “why is the carbon monoxide detector suddenly flashing” level of am I going to kill the entire family tonight?

Now, the readings never ventured even close to lethal, but the fact that it was registering at all let me know that something wasn’t right. The next sign was that the furnace was running hard, but the house wasn’t getting warm. I’m going to condense the events of a week into three plumber visits, a few new parts installed, a few pipes defrosted, and me learning about new settings on the furnace, and hopefully (she says while crossing her fingers) we are all good now.

This is the frustrating part of adulting. First of all, I’m not sure when exactly I should have taken Coal Furnace 101, but I definitely missed that class. I’m not sure if it’s wisdom that is just sort of passed down from one coal stove operator to another or if there is a manual somewhere that I didn’t read. I did try searching the internet, and found a lot of tidbits, but I also got the feeling that operating a coal stove is as much of an art as it is a learned skill, and it’s one that’s starting to disappear.

On top of that, fixing other things and upgrading other systems put a strain on this system that I wasn’t expecting. It’s an expensive lesson to learn, and it has me wondering how many other “improvements” are going to be worth it in the long run, or if I should just let things sit.

Did I mention in the middle of all of this chaos, the dishwasher decided that running for 38 years was long enough, and it was just done. I couldn’t blame it, but I might have been a little jealous. I was sorely tempted to just stop working as well.

I also want to try to educate the kids, both on how to maintain and fix these issues and how to not completely freak out and panic when the house is 45 degrees and dropping quickly. I don’t know that I was successful on either front, but I tried. It has been a lot.

I can’t decide if 2026 is starting out poorly because it’s been one issue after another, or if it’s a good start because so far, we’ve been able to roll with the punches and things are hopefully back on track, at least for a little while. I do feel that being at all hopeful that these rough patches are behind us will jinx me in the long run, but there is a limit to how many things are left in this house to malfunction.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News