It didn’t take long to figure out that the furnace wasn’t working. Like a curious little monkey, I went downstairs and pulled the panels off of the heater. I like to believe that I can fix things but also know when it’s something I shouldn’t touch. You never know how easy something might be to fix if you can adhere to the “look but don’t touch” philosophy of home repair jobs.
I knew that thermostats wear out. So, the first thing I did was to crank the heat up to 90 degrees to see if the thermostat was wearing out in the furnace. That is, if it was giving a bad reading and thinking that 60 was actually 70 and thus not keeping the heater on enough. Nothing much happened. I checked the circuit breaker in the garage. Oddly enough, our furnace has a distinct auditory pattern. The fan starts, the air blows, and then it emits a whoosh of gas igniting just like a gas grill. Then, warm air. The pattern was the same each time except that we never got that final whoosh of gas igniting sound.
I didn’t smell any gas, so I went upstairs and lit the gas fireplace to make sure we were getting gas to the house (did I forget to pay the gas bill?). It fired right up and I kept it on so that the living room would stay warm. I went back downstairs and verified that the red light on the circuit board was solid, indicating everything electronically was a-ok (the back of the bottom panel has a key for the number of blinks and what it means). The furnace kept the same pattern up and did everything it normally does except light. So, I set out to find where the igniter was located.
When I found the igniter I realized that it was very easy to pull out. I pulled it out in one piece and headed up to show Stacey. I practically only breathed on it and it crumbled to pieces. Since that was what I thought was the issue in the first place, I was pretty sure it was the problem. So, I headed down to Rampart Plumbing and Heating and picked up a new one for $30. I put the new one back into the furnace and the cycle started again. After a second or two and after I took a couple of steps back, the new igniter started to glow and eventually reached the point where it was bright orange hot. The gas caught it and ignited the flames immediately. The piece is made of coated ceramic and since it sits in the flame eventually wears out.
Long story short I saved us about $200 (based on a neighbor’s recent experience of calling someone out for the same problem). I got a nice pat on the back for “taking care of us” from Julia, which was appreciated.
Photos left to right: the old igniter, the gas and red light on/solid, the new igniter in the flame, the new igniter in the flame, white electrical cord showing the igniter power supply, Quincey looking very concerned.
