As I write, it’s 34 degrees F outside, and snowing. Snowing!
In any case, it’s COLD outside.
My rental unit came with a natural gas fireplace. When we rented the unit, I asked the landlord if the fireplace worked, since many rental units simply have their fireplaces disabled. She thought it did, and I was excited!
Well, move in day came and went … and I got (darn you, Mrs. Brabson!) around to trying the fireplace.
Perhaps not surprisingly–given the condition of the unit as a whole–it didn’t work.
I talked to the rental company about it, and they suggested that I talk to NorthWestern Energy about it.
Well, wait. Back up.
First, I talked to the rental company, and when the repair guy finally came out, he fidgeted around with the fireplace, asked me for a paperclip, made a few phone calls, and finally told me that he didn’t know.
Well, then I talked to the rental company again and they referred me.
The NorthWestern guy came out (actually, he stopped by on his own … to see why we hadn’t used any gas in the last three months) and got the pilot light going. Then, he looked at the electrical components inside the fireplace, started to ask me a question, and then stopped, saying, “no. I better not. We legally can’t jump this.” He suggested that I contact the rental company back.
So, I did. This time, my landlady remembered that the fireplace had broken a while back, and the owner had decided that he didn’t want to pay to have the fireplace fixed. “So,” she told me, “if you want it fixed, it’s on your own dime.”
Well, fair enough.
Well … tonight it’s cold outside! Today’s high was something like 38 degrees F!
And so, being through with my homework, I decided to mess around with the fireplace. I’m a mechanically inclined guy, ya know?
So I put two and two together. I fiddled around with the wires, to no avail, and then I thought to myself:
“We’re not legally allowed to jump it. “
Hmm. So that means, “If I could I would just this fireplace.”
Probably to check to see if one of the thermostats had stopped working. Hmm!
Fiddling around with my paperclip, suddenly I heard “Tick. … Fhoop! … Fhoop!” as the fireplace “fired” up, back row, then front row.
A little more meddling, and I figured out that there was a wire that I could connect a black wire to another screw, and then, “Tick! Fhoop! Fhoop!”
And so, now, I’m sitting by a warm, roaring fire, writing this post.
Now, for a little economics:
1) I’m aware that there’s probably a reason why there’s a thermostat. There’s probably some sort of safety feature that I’m circumventing by “jumping” my fireplace.
2) The batteries in my fire-alarm are fresh.
3) The owner’s attitude is, “I don’t care. Extract as much money from the house as possible. I’m not going to pay to keep it up.” (This attitude has come up in other areas, like fixing the broken shades on the windows.)
An economist might say, by refusing the keep up the house, the owner has failed to create the proper incentives for its renters to keep up the place. S/he doesn’t care, why should we?
Here we have a classic example of moral hazard (see: the federal financial bail-out plan). The owner has failed to create the proper incentives for me, a renter, to avoid risky behavior.
And so: when we want to run the fireplace, we jump it. To turn it off, we simply pull out the wire. And oh, it’s warm and cozy!
