Ah, the hassles of winter...

I had planned to take the morning off, then attend a meeting downtown with Bike Louisville's Education sub-committee. However, Wednesday evening, we found that our furnace was not working well at all--it was often blowing cold air rather than hot air.

Thursday morning, I called the HVAC folks who had installed the unit, as they are usually a pretty good outfit. I made arrangements for their tech to come by this morning.

He found a switch that had somehow been turned off. It seemed a simple enough cause for the symptoms, so he charged me for the service call and went on his way. However, about an hour after he left, I noted that, again, the furnace was blowing cold air. I called the tech, who told me he would call the office. I hadn't heard anything by about noon, so I called the office myself. He had called, but they hadn't gotten down their list as far as my name yet.

Anyway, the second tech arrived a bit after two. He poked around inside the furnace, finding a dirty flame sensor, a wire connection that had somehow gotten unplugged, showed me some diagrams and how to read them, waited for the machine to prove that it was going to work right, and then went on his way.

About an hour later, I found that, again, the furnace was blowing cold air. I called the HVAC outfit again, and they told me they'd fine another tech to send my way.

He arrived about 5:00 or 5:30. Since he was primed to look for intermittent problem-causing failures, he almost immediately noted some discoloration on the PC board that controls the furnace. He pulled it to inspect its reverse side, and saw damning evidence that it had gotten hot and that the resistors had failed. He also found indications that this was not the original circuit board.

$320 more later, I supposedly have a furnace that will be reliable for a while longer.

A couple years ago, I was working in a program that tried to find money to fix furnaces for low-income elderly folks. Having experienced that, I know how fortunate I am. I have a fairly well-insulated house--certainly compared to the houses of some of those folks I tried to help. While it's a burden in the short-term, we can afford to fix this out of our own pockets. We can afford to pay the gas bill to keep this furnace running for a while longer.

It's good to have heat when the low temperature for the night will be around 10F.

Of course, I missed the meeting, having to be around waiting for the HVAC techs to arrive. I also missed getting to ride a bicycle today. I had intended to ride to Feeder's Supply to get cat food, or to ValuMarket, since one potential mission was going to be a trip to Lowe's to return some furnace filters for ones that are not so restrictive and the two are close together. Having to wait for the technicians to arrive put the kibosh on those plans, too.