More mechanical blues

[dreamshark]

We finally called the boiler guy and got the furnace tuned up today. He replaced the oil filter and oil nozzle so it should come on smoothly with no big puffs of smoke. Whew, that's a relief, what with the subzero temps and all, right? Wrong. Richard just came upstairs to tell me that the furnace didn't come on at the last cycle and won't come on when you push the emergency button either. In other words, it's doing what it was doing before only worse. And it's almost midnight Friday night, with the temperature at zero. Now what???

Comments

SIgn up for Service Plus...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

I've got a few electric heaters if you need them...

Re: SIgn up for Service Plus...

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Service Plus is a service of Minnegasco, is it not? We have a fuel oil furnace. Boiler. Whatever.

I just called Owens, the guys that were out earlier today fiddling with the thing, and left a number for callback. Meanwhile, Richard managed to get the heat going again by throwing a ball of lighted newspaper inside and slamming the door (kind of like Hansel and Gretel slamming the witch into her big oven). If nothing else, we can turn up the heat so the furnace stays on all night or until the house gets hot enough to hold heat for the rest of the night.

Thanks for the heater offer. I hope we don't need to take you up on it...

Re: SIgn up for Service Plus...

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Probably not; there's probably a water temperature cutoff that will stop the furnace, because they're usually capable of generating heat somewhat faster than the radiators can radiate it. At least that was our experience; it didn't get up to the setpoint on the thermostat in one run, ever, in a week. (We had to manually start ours each cycle all last week, though by a process less exciting than throwing burning paper into the combustion chamber.)

It's definitely worth trying the same people who just fixed it, since if you can convince them the problem now is their fault they often bump the priority up. Lots of people needing furnace service just at the moment, by one of those remarkable statistical coincidences that make the world go round.

Re: SIgn up for Service Plus...

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

"(We had to manually start ours each cycle all last week, though by a process less exciting than throwing burning paper into the combustion chamber.)"

No kidding? I feel slightly less alone. How were you restarting yours? Did you get it fixed, or are you still staying up all night stoking the fire?

Re: SIgn up for Service Plus...

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

In our case, we had to give the flue damper a little push to get it to open the last little bit (and engage the safety switch). Everything else worked.

The part finally got replaced yesterday morning, so it's been going on its own since then. And it's now around 18C in my office instead of 16C.

Re: SIgn up for Service Plus...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Call if you do. One other suggestion, put your biggest stock pot full of water on the stove and let it simmer all night. Heck, you could even make soup...