I know it may sound crazy, but a fire alarm going off in the middle of the night last week actually saved more than our lives.
In the dead of the night, while the whole house was peacefully sleeping, an alarm sounded that jolted us to alertness.
We followed our emergency exit plan and met in the front yard. Not seeing any signs of smoke or flames I started to investigate while waiting for the fire department. Everything honestly looked normal and the detector that was sounding was located in the basement. Once the emergency services arrived they headed down there to see what the problem was. They quickly came to the conclusion that the, “smoke”, that had set off the alarm was in fact a huge cloud of dust that had blown into the air from the ductwork of our HVAC system. Part of the pipe was hanging from the basement ceiling and the HVAC system was blowing dust and debris into the air as it ran. Thanks to the alarm sounding, the ductwork breaking, and the emergency responding, we knew we needed to have the HVAC system serviced. I thanked the responders for their speedy response and sent the kids back to bed. I looked up the number for a local HVAC repair company that offered emergency repairs. When I explained the issue they were kind enough to explain that the problem could more than likely wait until normal business hours. This would save me significantly and they could be there first think in the morning. They repairs took a few hours and they also cleaned the entire ductwork system while they were at it. They said that the problem that we had more than likely saved our HVAC system because it would have surely failed if left unserviced for much longer.