My brother and I bought houses that were built in the same year, several decades ago.
The houses weren’t in the same neighborhood, but within driving distance and it wasn’t odd that they were constructed in the same year. This area went through a massive housing boom back during that time frame and a lot of the houses were built with the same style. Not only were our houses built during the same year, but our HVAC systems were replaced during the same year, which meant that our current HVAC systems were the same age. Knowing this, we’ve always kept each other accountable for HVAC tune ups and we’ve always compared our utility bills to see who was able to save money. Last year though, our furnaces needed to be replaced because they were running inefficiently and experiencing a lot of problems. I decided to have my furnace replaced at the end of the winter season and my brother decided to wait until the following fall. He said that he didn’t want to spend the money on the furnace when he had almost an entire year before turning it on again. Since he chose to do this, he had the lingering responsibility to pay for and replace his furnace for months while I was able to relax knowing that mine was handled. By the time fall rolled around, I could sense that my brother was relieved. It would have caused much less stress and anxiety if he’d simply replaced his furnace at the end of the winter like I did.