My fiancée and I weren’t even in our newly rented house for six hours before an HVAC problem kicked up.

Now, mind you, this is the first time I’ve actually had to care about what my HVAC unit was doing. Whether it was living with my parents, or in a college dorm or apartment, that was always someone else’s problem.

Well, not so much anymore.

Throughout the night at our home, we kept wondering exactly why there was no hot water when we were washing our hands. As we prepared for bed, we decided this was probably an issue that needed further investigation, or we’d be faced with cold showers in the morning, and nobody wants to experience that.

So we go over to the closet that stores these things and realize that, yep, the water heater isn’t lit. So we team up to light it, praying we don’t get blown up along the way, following the step-by-step instructions pasted on the side. After a few tries (and miraculously being able to find matches amongst the rubble that is our move-in), we got it lit and had hot water again.

This little incident made me realize how much I’ve taken the HVAC systems I’ve used over the years for granted. Now that I’m going to be having to look after one to a certain extent, it’s time to shape up and use my recently gained knowledge from talking to all the great contractors I’ve chatted with to use!

But after one very minor incident, I now know I’ll never take my HVAC system for granted again. I value my comfort too much to mess around with it.