Adventures in Furnace Repairs

This is what I woke up to on Thursday. Um, I tend to like the house a little cooler than Sprout does. She accuses me of trying to freeze her to death on occasion. The thermostat is one of those programmable ones that you can have adjust your temperature multiple times throughout the day. I generally keep it at 64 during the night and have it adjust up to 70 for wakey wakey time. When I threw back the covers I knew immediately that there was a problem - the air was to cold. So, while quite cold I dutifully did all the things I could think of to get the heater going.

New batteries in thermostat (the battery light was flashing)

New filter in furnace (the filter light was flashing -- ooops)

Maybe due to all the wind the pilot light has gone out. Search through house trying to find one of the long handled lighters. We have two of them, you'd think it would be easy to find at least one. Sprout LOVES candles and always obsconds with the lighter. Wake up Sprout in search of the lighter. Go down into family room and dig around. Bingo. Why the lighter is in the box of 'gaming paraphenalia' I will never know.

Open up furnace cover and try to read instructions (clear down by the floor) on how to light the furnace. Wowie, it has en electric ignition. (I've only had it for 3 years, without incident, so no smart remarks on not knowing this already.) Cool, no lighter needed after all. Turn off gas, wait 5 minutes. Hmm, what to do to kill 5 minutes? Pack my lunch, yep that works. Go back downstairs. Turn the gas on. Put the cover back on. Flip on the power to the thermostat. Nothing.

Hmmm, maybe there's no gas coming into house? Pull apart base of water heater. Hmm, there's a pilot light glowing so gas is not the issue. Double-check thermostat, it appears to be fine.

Call Sandy to get a recommendation on a service company as they had their furnace worked on just a couple of weeks ago. Sandy goes to work at 5:00am so don't think I was crazy to give her a jingle that early in the AM.

Resign myself to showering - at least we have hot water - and getting ready for work. Once at work call and schedule a repair technician and realize that I have left my cell phone on the charger at home. They said that they would have the technician call my work number before they came to the house. I only work 10 minutes from home so I could quickly leave the office and meet him there. He should call between 10 and noon. Great.

Fill up my water, go potty, sit at desk dutifully waiting for phone to ring. 12:01pm and no phone call. 12:05 and still no phone call. I call the company and they check into it. Um, the technician went to the house and no one was home. Great. I explain the whole need to call me at work and I'll drive home thing - again. They promise it will be before 2pm. 20 minutes later - we're a go. Gather up my stuff and hurry home.

The technician spends about 20 minutes and says, it's your thermostat. Your fuse was blown, I put a new one in and when the furnace tried to kick on the fuse blew again. When I bypass the thermostat the fuse doesn't blow. This visit is $138.50 and you can go buy a thermostat from Lowes and install it yourself. So, just out of curiosity, if I have you supply and install a thermostat how much will that set me back? $250.00. Um, not on top of the $138 right? Right. Yeeee, that's a little steep for my budget. Write out a check. Send him packing. Drive to Lowes. Look at various and assundry models of thermostats. I can't justify spending $90 so that that cuts out a few models. Settle on a $35 unit. Grab some more filters to have on hand - maybe I'll change them more frequently. Maybe. Head home.

Take old thermostat apart. Study wiring connections. Open new thermostat. Houston, we have a problem. Old thermostat has 4 wiring connections, new thermostat has spots for 5. Hmmm. A little head-scratching and studying. I'm feeling really good about where to put 3 of the 4 wires. Got a 50/50 shot with the fourth. Go with my first guess. Go downstairs, flip on the power. Nothing happens. Nadda. Go back up move the one wire to the other possible location. Back downstairs, turn on power. The furnace clicks a little but doesn't really turn on. Hmmm. Pull the cover off only to discover the technician had turned the gas off. Grrrrrr. Turn it on, put the cover on, flip the switch. Hallelujia!!!!

Strut through house like a proud peacock. I battled the thermostat and won!!!

It's currently 70 degrees and it feels doubley good.