As I sit here in my freezing house I've come to realize the job that I hated for the first 5 years of my career actually helped me develop a skill. How to deal with the unexpected or making quick decisions in an emergency. To make a long story short I think the blower motor went out for my furnace.

How it Started

I went out to a restaurant called Culvers to get my wife some frozen custard (fake ice cream) because her teeth were hurting her. I went to the restaurant and picked up 2 ice creams because if I pick up some frozen custard for her I have to pick up some frozen custard for my son.

Source

As I'm pulling into the garage my wife calls me frantically telling me to get home as soon as possible because the entire house is filling with smoke and she can't find the source. She tells me that smoke is coming out of every vent so the first thing I ask is have you turned off the furnace yet?

I then head down to the basement and touch the stack off the top of the furnace and of course, that was a mistake. It was a little hot so then I try and take the front of the furnace to see if there is anything I can see causing all the smoke and don't see much.

Currently

I tell my wife to go ahead and go for a drive or over to her dads or sisters while I open some windows to let some of the smoke out and call to see if there are any HVAC companies open this weekend. Luckily, 1 called me back and now they are checking to see if they have the correct size blower motor to come swap it out.

I also forgot to mention we had the outside of our 2 story house painted last fall and all the windows on the second floor are painted shut, so I have every shower vent turned on upstairs hoping that at least gets some of the smoke out of the house until we can get the furnace fixed. I'm just sitting here writing freezing as I did open some first floor windows to help get some of the smoke out.

Dealing with Emergencies

I hated dealing with emergencies where I used to work. It seemed like someone's hair was on fire at least once a day where I used to work, including the weekends. I have to say, even though I used to hate dealing with these kinds of issues, I knew exactly what to check and what needed to be done in the heat of the moment and it felt a little good.

UPDATE

Unfortunately, it wasn't just the blower motor and we have a cracked heat exchanger. Talking to my wife she saw the smoke coming outside before it started to feel the house and the HVAC tech was saying that points to issues with the heat exchangers that are old and probably have a crack.

I'll be talking to my wife, but it looks like we will probably be getting a new furnace. It's over 20 years old and it could be one of those things where you replace the heat exchanger and don't have any issues for another 10 years or you could be replacing parts at $500 a pop for the next 5 years.