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.

Similar problem once

[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.)

Sullivan Service trouble

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

About 8 years ago, I called Sullivan Service for a non-emergency problem. If I remember correctly, it was a leaky pipe joint (something that I know how to fix, but just didn't want to fix). I had to be at work, so my girlfriend waited for the repairman. He charged her over $300 for the work (an excessive price for a 30 minute job). Then, he informed her that the hoses behind the washer were frayed and he offered to replace those for an additional (high!) fee. The trick: we'd just replaced those hoses a few weeks before. They -did- have to be replaced again -- because somebody had taken a file to them.

I no longer do business with Sullivan Service.

Re: Sullivan Service trouble

[cellio]

Yikes! How horrid. I hope you complained to someone and got that guy fired.

Our experiences with them have been positive to neutral, but we haven't had that many. Certainly never had anything like that happen! Wow.

Re: Similar problem once

[cellio]

This furnace probably had clear restart instructions inside 40 years ago. Now, no evidence of same. We're planning to replace the furnace this year. (We were going to do it last year but couldn't quite make the money work then.)