HAPPINESS THROUGH HUMANITY

Heating company warms hearts of Plainfield Township couple, turning Friday the 13th into a lucky day.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

By TONY NAUROTH

The Express-Times

PLAINFIELD TWP. | It's unlikely Livingston W. Smith will ever again fear Friday the 13th, not after his experience with Nov. 13, 2009.

He and his wife, Betty Jane Smith, will remember it as Christmas-come-early when his heating system crashed and a generous contractor installed a new one for free.

Smith's furnace broke down in the small double-wide prefab home on Norman Street and when Betty Jane opened the phone book looking for someone to fix it, she settled on a name that "just sounded so nice," she said.

It also helped that Curtis Total Service Inc. advertises "24-hour emergency service."

Plus she found a $30 coupon, which, in the end, she didn't need.

That Friday started out miserably after a cold night and a furnace on the fritz. They called Curtis, who came out and fixed it.

Within hours, it broke again. After the third time over a period of just a few days, company owner Curtis Shafer and operations manager Rich Price came out to the home off Sullivan Trail, studied the Smith's system and pronounced it dead.

Replacement would cost the Smith's $3,600, according to installation technician Rodney Smith, no relation to Livingston and Betty Jane.

"Thirty-six hundred dollars is a lot of money," Betty Jane said.

Then, out of the blue, Curtis Shafer and his managers arranged to give the system to the Smiths -- for free.

Technician John Schafer, no relation to Curtis, said the company provides a free system to one customer per year just before the Christmas season.

"It's the fourth year we've done this," John Schafer said.

"We never had anything like this in our life," Betty Jane said. "We struggled for 40 years."

Price said the owner never planned to help those in need like the Smiths.

"The first one we had was a woman who was in tears," Price said, adding that the idea just sprang out of the moment after listening to somebody in trouble