Heat Restored
Heat is a good thing... especially when you don't have it.
We got home extremely late Friday night. I'm sure we checked the thermostat in our routine of getting everyone settled into bed. I'm sure there wasn't anything notable at that point. While it is early in the season, this isn't the first time the heat has been on in our house.
We all get a fairly good night’s sleep. I'm woken by the boy Saturday morning, as usual. I do think to myself that it is a bit chilly, but brush it off because I did just climb out of a comfy, cozy, and warm (electric mattress pad warm) bed. I look at the thermostat, clearly blurry eyed and thought hey I'll just bump it up a couple of degrees. The boy and I then head downstairs to the coldest part of the house. Yeah, it was cold but I figured the heat would kick on and it would warm up. I wasn't really paying attention to notice that the heat never kicked on. We went upstairs to get ready to go to basketball and I take another look at the thermostat. Thermostat was reading 64. Yep, it was cold for a reason!
As we were running out the door to get to Spencer's basketball game I grab the number for the service company who was last out. After a conversation with them, a conversation amongst Carie and I, and then again the service company we set an appointment for Monday morning.
We knew we'd be facing weekend rates if they came out prior to Monday. The earliest they could come out was Saturday evening, which would have been nice to get it going prior to the night hours. But geesh, their weekends rates were practically double their regular rate. Rightly so, I'm sure. We opt to skip the weekend rate and spend that difference on a space heater that we already had been debating about getting. We hoped that we could get by the rest of the weekend without the furnace. Oh, and it was the coldest weekend we've had by far this season. We didn't get the snow that was predicted, but our lows were in the 25-30 range all weekend. With the intense wind we had on Saturday the wind-chill temps had to have been quite low. I'm really thankful that it wasn't colder!
And ya know what, our plan worked. It was really fairly cozy all weekend. The fireplace helped more than we ever thought it did. We just had to keep stoking it to get some really good heat out of it. The kitchen and dining area benefited from us baking dinner and fresh bread. And what the heck, why not make a pie while we are at it.
This morning we got the call from the service guy who was headed out. Yay for the phone call that they said we would get! We must have been towards the beginning of his list to start his day. He cleaned the flame sensor, as they have done in the past. We thought about trying to do that last fall on our own. But after watching him do it this morning there is good reason for us not to do it. With our particular model of furnace it really is more complicated than it need to be. Good to know! All along I'm thinking it has to be something else. We've lived in this house for 9 years and have had no furnace problems until last winter. While cleaning the sensor annually may be a good idea, we seem to need it more frequently. And at the rates they charge to come out and do it, I was really looking for a bigger picture answer. So when he appeared and said that it looked like it might be more than the flame sensor, I wasn't surprised. I was probably a little relieved, actually. That is until we discovered the price tag! $375 later, our furnace appears to be working again. I'm glad we didn't go with the weekend rate! Thankfully he noted that everything else looked to be in great working order.
Heat restored.
We got home extremely late Friday night. I'm sure we checked the thermostat in our routine of getting everyone settled into bed. I'm sure there wasn't anything notable at that point. While it is early in the season, this isn't the first time the heat has been on in our house.
We all get a fairly good night’s sleep. I'm woken by the boy Saturday morning, as usual. I do think to myself that it is a bit chilly, but brush it off because I did just climb out of a comfy, cozy, and warm (electric mattress pad warm) bed. I look at the thermostat, clearly blurry eyed and thought hey I'll just bump it up a couple of degrees. The boy and I then head downstairs to the coldest part of the house. Yeah, it was cold but I figured the heat would kick on and it would warm up. I wasn't really paying attention to notice that the heat never kicked on. We went upstairs to get ready to go to basketball and I take another look at the thermostat. Thermostat was reading 64. Yep, it was cold for a reason!
As we were running out the door to get to Spencer's basketball game I grab the number for the service company who was last out. After a conversation with them, a conversation amongst Carie and I, and then again the service company we set an appointment for Monday morning.
We knew we'd be facing weekend rates if they came out prior to Monday. The earliest they could come out was Saturday evening, which would have been nice to get it going prior to the night hours. But geesh, their weekends rates were practically double their regular rate. Rightly so, I'm sure. We opt to skip the weekend rate and spend that difference on a space heater that we already had been debating about getting. We hoped that we could get by the rest of the weekend without the furnace. Oh, and it was the coldest weekend we've had by far this season. We didn't get the snow that was predicted, but our lows were in the 25-30 range all weekend. With the intense wind we had on Saturday the wind-chill temps had to have been quite low. I'm really thankful that it wasn't colder!
And ya know what, our plan worked. It was really fairly cozy all weekend. The fireplace helped more than we ever thought it did. We just had to keep stoking it to get some really good heat out of it. The kitchen and dining area benefited from us baking dinner and fresh bread. And what the heck, why not make a pie while we are at it.
This morning we got the call from the service guy who was headed out. Yay for the phone call that they said we would get! We must have been towards the beginning of his list to start his day. He cleaned the flame sensor, as they have done in the past. We thought about trying to do that last fall on our own. But after watching him do it this morning there is good reason for us not to do it. With our particular model of furnace it really is more complicated than it need to be. Good to know! All along I'm thinking it has to be something else. We've lived in this house for 9 years and have had no furnace problems until last winter. While cleaning the sensor annually may be a good idea, we seem to need it more frequently. And at the rates they charge to come out and do it, I was really looking for a bigger picture answer. So when he appeared and said that it looked like it might be more than the flame sensor, I wasn't surprised. I was probably a little relieved, actually. That is until we discovered the price tag! $375 later, our furnace appears to be working again. I'm glad we didn't go with the weekend rate! Thankfully he noted that everything else looked to be in great working order.
Heat restored.
Labels: House Projects
posted by Sonya at 8:58 AM
1 Comments:
Don't you just hate these kinds of problems? This am I thought the heater was broken because the vent was putting off cool air then like a dummy I realized I had the fan in the "on" position instead of "auto". Phew!
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