Really, the whole thing was my fault. And it was all due to the way I can be when it comes to spending sizeable amounts of money. When it comes to spending on big ticket items, I like to control the details so I can see where the money is going. However, in this case, I should have had more guidance from the HVAC company. When the HVAC technician informed us during routine HVAC maintenance that our HVAC unit was failing, I paid attention. Of course, that wasn’t the greatest news ever but I wasn’t exactly completely unprepared. When the HVAC equipment turned 20 years old, I started saving for the HVAC replacement. This was a good idea since I would have an amount saved up by the time I needed to do something about the HVAC unit. Actually, it turned out that the HVAC equipment ended up going much longer than I had anticipated. We got just over 25 years out of the HVAC unit. However, when it was time to replace it, I should have gone immediately to the HVAC company to begin the process. That way, it would have been brought to my attention far earlier that our HVAC ductwork would also need to be replaced. The ductwork was at least 50 years old and just wouldn’t hold up any longer. This would have been good to know at the time so I could have included a ductless multi split heating and cooling system into the options. Instead, we ended up ripping out all the ductwork and replacing it as I had already purchased HVAC equipment online.