brr.

Feb. 12th, 2006 09:39 pm
cellio: (fire)
[personal profile] 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.

Similar problem once

Date: 2006-02-13 12:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] astroprisoner.livejournal.com
We had a similar furnace problem one day a few years back, and there was no sign of the pilot light being on. I opened up the furnace, and luckily there were some very clear restart instructions that ended with words to the effect of "If you've tried to relight three times and had no luck, call a repairman because it's a more serious problem." (In our case, it was a failed thermocouple.)

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