The furnace dates from -- I think -- 2014. That made it new-ish when we bought the house in 2017. But they don't make furnaces (or, indeed, anything else) like they used to; a service life of as little as 10 years is not unheard of.

This one has an apparent design flaw that affects the drainage of condensate: a low-lying interior duct that easily gets blocked. Last year's summer crisis (over Canada Day) required replacement of the condensate pump, and the unfortunate duct acted up just before Christmas.

All weekend I kept the house reasonably comfortable the old-fashioned way: windows open at night, windows shut during the day with the curtains drawn, fans blowing. In fact, this house was not built with air-conditioning -- it was a late-'80s retrofit -- so conditions improved quickly as soon as I established cross-ventilation. Thank God for fly screens; the mosquitoes are just about at peak.

The EBay dispute has been resolved in my favour with a complete refund, but it will be a frosty Friday in July before I take a chance like that again. If I ever again want to buy that much fine crystal all at once, I'll suck it up and get it from Replacements or -- gasp! -- from an actual brick-and-mortar shop.