I was feeling cold even in the house and checked the thermostat a few times... wondering why the furnace wan't keeping up... not getting up to the set temperature of +21C.... it seemed to be running steadily.....
Finally I went down there and looked in the furnace room...and at this...
the diabolical red eye....reminds me of The Terminator...
If it is just like this....still and red...it's a good thing. But... if it is flashing on and off in a series of well choreographed blips... it's trouble. Today.... it was 3 short and one long..... aha! Definitely not right.
There is a troubleshooting list right beside it...
Lying on my belly, with my glasses on... I could clearly see that 31 indicates heat pressure switch not functioning correctly or a relay problem... great. I could have turned everything off I suppose,... and let it restart..but, usually it takes a while...and I was not about to let the better part of the day go by without getting a service call organized. They tried to put me off til tomorrow...but..eh..... it's a long cold night without any heat ...even inside a house, so I insisted they come today.
I had already taken out the big electrostatic filters as instructed on the phone...they didn't look dirty, but, I left them out...no improvement. The service guy (who speaks very little English) shows up.... opens the furnace door and says...."Wow...hot"... takes out the other small screen filters (they were filthy) ....... hands them to me and says..."You vacuum...I put back...it work". Oh....
His next sentence was...."How you pay"? .... and the bill for that....$115.00 with tax. How humiliating. I thought I was a pretty good housekeeper...but, my slothfulness with the furnace filters just cost a bundle. Lesson learned.
Do your furnace filters need a bit of a vacuuming? .... if I save one person a whopping "regular-service-call" bill as well as being totally humiliated.... this will be a great day yet...
9 comments:
I leave the furnace stuff to hubby and every once in a while I remind him to clean the filter.
I'm not overly fond of the vacuum but for $115 I could tolerate it. Yes, with 5 furries ours gets dirty too!
Oh dear, that is a big bill to pay, but heat is essential. Luckily your bears are very furry so they stayed warm. I don't have a furnace since I live in California, so we have simple gas heaters and no filters!
OMG! that is daylight robbery! Um, I wonder if ours needs cleaning... best find out eh. Having said that, we mostly use the wood stove because it's free and makes the entire house so hot you have to strip off! Actually yesterday I was in the garden with just a t-shirt on (and shorts of course) yet today I had to build a fire! madness living down here.
We have a wood fire so no filters to clean, but we have to clean the flue now and again. I can't imagine how cold it is there. We're having our summer here at the moment and the A/C is going. Those filters are on the roof and Petal cleans them at the beginning of the season-bless him.
I can just see you trying to read the instructions laying on the floor trying to see through a pair of glasses. I have multifocals and I would have to tilt my head back as far as it could go. Too hard to do so I would use my computer glasses or a magnifying glass for something like that. Hope your getting warmed up by now. I'll send you a big bear hug to keep you warm while waiting and to cheer you up after paying for the advice. Maa.
We have ours serviced each year and the cost of that keeps rising too fast for my liking! AND the oil costs twice as much as it did when we moved here 4 years ago! Ah well - at least we are warm. Keep cosy x Jo
I broken furnace during a Canadian winter is NOT a good thing!!! Hubby changes the furnace filter on ours every year. They don't cost very much (about $20 for our furnace) so they are well worth it.
Hope you keep cozy warm this weekend!
xo Catherine
Wow BumbleVee what a rip off. I can picture you laying on the floor with glasses, I been there. We have wood stove but my Mom has furnace I change the filters but I guess I better check some little more things out. Thanks for the tip. B
Oh Vee, that is "Highway Robbery":(
as the saying goes! :(
How often do you need to vacuum them? Please put a sign up next to the furnace with Big Red Letters " Vacuum Filters on (next date) so you won't forget!
Hugs
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