One recent Saturday afternoon, I heard a beeping in my house and followed the sound down to my basement.  Lo and behold, I realized that the beep was to inform me that a nice puddle had formed which I thought was coming from the hot water heater.  Fast forward to later that day, my husband realized that the problem was the furnace, not the hot water heater. Neither is fun, but a non-functional heater in Chicagoland on a weekend in the winter, to put it gently, sucks.  To add to the situation, my husband, the handy one in my house, was going to be out-of-town few that following Monday and…