Waiting for Service

Waiting for Service…

I have forced air, oil heat in my home.  My house is small and the ceilings are only 7 feet high.  My late husband hated the house because he was 6 foot 1 inch tall and that had him very close to the ceiling, but it was easier to heat in the winter.  The current furnace was one that was installed back in the 90’s when the furnace that came with the house suffered a crack in the firebox.  It has been very, very reliable… until recently.

Early in December I was in the house and noticed that it was a tad bit chilly.  I checked my thermometer and it was several degrees below where it should have been, yet the fan on the heater was blowing and blowing and blowing.  The problem was that it was cold air.  There was no warm air coming up and out of the ducts.  This would have been a time when I called to Rudy, wherever he was at that time, to go down and see what was wrong.  Now that task fell on me.

The first thing I did was to go into the bedroom in the basement and check the oil level in the storage tank.  It is inside a wall but the gauge can be seen.  I had oil, so that was not the problem.

I looked at the furnace.  Yep, it was a furnace!!  Power was on, fan was running and running, but no heat, no roar was coming from the inside where a fire should be burning.  I finally noticed a sign on the side of the furnace, steps to take before calling service.  So I read the list and followed the steps.  The last one was to press the reset button ONE TIME only.  First, I had to find the button!  Nothing on the outside, so I removed the front panel and found the red button that was marked ‘reset’.  I pushed it and poof…. There was a whooshing sound as the oil ignited and within seconds, I could feel the heat.  The house got warm again and the furnace seemed to be running fine.

The furnace got through the holidays without an issue.  BUT, and you knew that was coming, after helping my BFF, Debby, move on Saturday, I came home to find another chill in the house.  Once again I followed the steps and finally pushed the reset button.  Whoosh… fire… and several billows of black smoke out of the joints heading into the chimney.  Yikes!  But I had fire and heat.  Happy camper!

UNTIL yesterday…. And it happened again in the late afternoon.  The furnace was running and running but only cold air coming out of the ducts.  There is something wrong.  So, I shut down the furnace.  I probably could have hit the reset button, but I did not want to do any damage to a malfunctioning furnace.  So I turned the system off, came upstairs and fired up the little propane heater.  It took a while, but I was finally warm. 

I also want to know how mechanical things like that always seem to have problems on a weekend!!!  I tried calling my oil service to leave a message for Monday.  Since I had the propane system, I did not want to pay for a weekend service call.  I have experienced crappy phone system in my lifetime.  This one rates among the best of the very worst!  It took me in circles twice but then I went into ‘waiting music’ hell.  After a couple of minutes, I just hung up.

So it is Monday.  I had plans and errands to run, but I am waiting for a service technician to arrive at the house.  I was on the phone a quickly after 8:00 AM as I could.  I am being worked into some poor tech’s schedule, but it is almost noon and so far no one has appeared or called.  Hopefully it is something simple.  I would hate to have to use some of the proceeds of the sale of the summer place for something so utilitarian as a new furnace!!!

Good news.  The furnace just needed a new nozzle and a couple of ceramic thingies for the igniter.  May be covered with my service agreement, if not, it will not be overly expensive.  He did not arrive until after 1:00 PM, but was finished in time for me to run my errands and get to the bank to make a couple of deposits.