brr.

[cellio]

It's 61 degrees in the house. That is not what the thermostat is set for.

I see no evidence of a pilot light on the furnace. I also can't tell exactly where one is supposed to put fire to relight it on our ancient and venerable furnace. There is a hum that suggests that something is happening -- presumably cold water is being propelled through the radiators. If there's a fuse involved, I can't find it. (I have more homeowner points than Dani, but my previous house had forced-air heat, so things are a little different. Also newer furnaces.)

I know that any not-incompetent homeowner is supposed to be able to relight a pilot light. But you know the canonical cartoon involving clouds of smoke and singed hair when people do that? That's got to be based on something, I figure.

So after a round of "do you feel safe to light it?", we decided to invoke the maintenance plan. If it's just the pilot, well, we get a slightly-expensive lesson in how to light it (we have to pay for after-hours calls); if it's more severe, we'd need the expert anyway.

Update 10:05PM: Kudos to Sullivan Service, who had someone here in 45 minutes. It was a minor member of the "take things apart" class of problems; clogged pilot assembly. (I would wonder how many decades' worth of soot that was, except that we had the furnace cleaned this fall.) We also got a lesson in lighting the pilot.

Comments

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

How cold is it outside? Where is your oil tank located? (Last winter, in our old house, the line in from the tank, which is outdoors, froze; the furnace hummed but could not suck the gelled fuel through the line. The service dude had to apply heat to the line.)

IMVHO I think you're doing the right thing calling for service.

I'm happy we have forced air with natural gas in our new house.

[cellio]

It's about 20 degrees outside. We have gas heat, not oil, so fortunately we haven't had to deal with tank-feed issues.