Oh, goody, the furnace is out

[pameladean]

Edited to Add: Furnace technician has come and gone. As David suspected, the pilot was out. Luckily for such pride as I possess, the ignition assembly needed to be disassembled and cleaned anyway, and they did not charge us their emergency fee. The technician also said that we really, really ought to replace the boiler. Well, in an ideal world, we probably would do so. Thanks for all the wishes of warmth; they have all been granted. I have yet to alter my apparel other than unsnapping the down vest, but that will come.

It's the coldest day of the season, with a vengeance. I think the high temperature is supposed to be 4 F. I got up at 11, which is late for me, but I think I kept not getting up because it was cold. It's a pity my waking mind didn't engage itself, because I could have called the furnace place sooner.

The furnace technician is coming between two and six. I sure hope it's closer to two. I'm not sure what could be amiss with the furnace. It's a gravity hot-water system. The thermocouple went last year and was replaced. It has a new used pressure tank, so I guess something could be amiss with that. I sincerely hope not. It might be the thermostat, I guess. I just hope this isn't the moment when it becomes obvious that we must have a new furnace.

It might even be that the pilot light went out, but I do not mess with natural gas, personally, and it's too cold to wait for a non-professional who does.

So I'm sitting in my office, a slightly leaky sunroom, and I'm wearing two sweaters, a down vest, leggings, oversized jeans, two pairs of socks, my thinsulate-lined boots, and my hat. Lydy has a space heater somewhere, but she's off at class.

The downstairs furnace, which is usually the one that goes wrong, is heating away, so I was able to warm up after shovelling snow and filling the bird-feeders. A sensible person would just take her laptop into the living room, but that is not my work space and I would just fool around on the computer. Which, it seems, I am doing anyway. Hmmmm.

Hope you guys are warmer than I am.

Pamela

Comments

[brooksmoses]

Brr!

I hope it's something no more drastic than the time that we were staying at my mom's farmhouse, and got very cold overnight because the furnace wasn't working (I think it got down to about 50 degrees inside the house). The morning after, we called my mom to report the problem, and she said, "Oh, that!" and explained that there was a big red "reset" button on the side of the furnace that we probably needed to push.

So I went and pushed it and the furnace came on, and I felt rather silly for not having called her the previous night when I first realized the furnace wasn't working.

[pameladean]

Alas, the furnace is too primitive to have a reset button.

There's a pretty funny bit in Shirley Jackson's Life Among the Savages where that's what the furnace needs, only the button isn't red and doesn't say "reset" and she's convinced she'll blow up the furnace, so she sends for the repair guy and then has to pay him in change from her kids' banks because she hasn't got any other cash.

I wish I could pay the guy who's coming here in nickels and quarters. But he'd have a bit of trouble carrying them.

P.

[tanac.livejournal.com]

Quite: currently 64F and I have a slight fever from the stupid chest cold. I'm happily sending excess warmth vibes your way.

[pameladean]

Oh, sorry about the chest cold. But I'll sop up the extra warmth, you bet. I'm probably not as good as a couple of aspirin, though.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I saw it was supposed to be -2 for the high, but timprov said the deck thermometer got up to +0.5. Rah.

Tea. I wish you tea.

[pameladean]

Whatever the high was, I'm sure it's over by now.

Yes, tea is excellent. I don't want to overdo it because it also has licorice root in it, but ginger tea is really good in these circumstances.

P.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, our office is chilly today due to the intransigent HVAC, but since it's quite a lot less freezing outdoors here, I think I'm better off. Speedy furnace techs to you.

[pameladean]

They were pretty speedy, bless them.

We've never had the furnace go out when it was this cold before. The house, unsurprisingly, holds heat better when the outside temperature is higher and, for that matter, when the sun is higher. I did note the effect of passive solar for the few hours we had it, though.

P.

[rosefox]

It's 57F here and I'm under two blankets, flannel sheets, and a big fuzzy robe. Extra warmth vibes to you!

[pameladean]

That sounds cozy; I hope it's 57 degrees by choice.

It was not much colder in here at the worst, but it feels colder when the outside is cold and it's getting dark. In spring and fall, I'll turn down the thermostat and open the windows at 57 degrees.

P.

[rosefox]

Oh yes, it's 57F outside. Much warmer inside. We're on the 5th floor of a radiator-heated building; once the steam gets going we don't even need to turn on our heat because we get so much from the floors below.

[pameladean]

Oh, yes, I used to live in an apartment like that. Sometimes I would even have to open the windows in the winter, which always made me feel guilty.

P.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

My sympathies.

Remind yourself that you're genetically adapted to Northern European winters.

And bring the livestock inside the house.

[pameladean]

Thanks.

I fear that the adaptation may have been weakened by long sojourning in the effete British Isles.

The livestock was burrowing under all the covers it could. I was tempted to bring the birds and squirrels in, but I didn't.

P.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, how unpleasant. You need to figure out a way to add cats to the warmth-providing accoutrements. It would be nice if they'd come sleep on your feet, but that's probably too much to ask.

It's only 27F here - "only" in the sense that (a) this is by far the coldest we've had it all year and (b) it's piddling compared to what you're stuck with. But I'm bundled in layers and shawls, hand-knitted wool socks *and* sheepskin slippers, and my hands are still cold. I doubt I could survive a Great Lakes winter these days...

[pameladean]

Ginger tea does absolute wonders for keeping one's extremities warm.

My cat slept on my feet while I was in bed, but sensibly decamped downstairs where it was warm once I insisted on getting up and charging around. Raphael's cat slept on Raphael's feet all afternoon, though.

P.

[rosefox]

I have yet to alter my apparel other than unsnapping the down vest

I read this and can't help but think of "The Frozen Logger": "At a hundred degrees below zero, he buttoned up his vest."

[pameladean]

*snork* Steve Brust used to do that song, when he lived here.

P.

[rosefox]

My mother loves that song. She even attempted to make beer sorbet, which she was going to call "Frozen Lager", but it didn't work out.

[pameladean]

Too much alcohol to freeze properly, or was it merely awful?

I'd try it, certainly, if anybody offered me any.

I love the song too. It's a nice macho Minnesota song, even if we are rather further south than its setting.

P.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you solved your problem--I was thinking of you when I went out. The high today was in the mid-30's. Poor Nanook--he has been going outside, but he can only stand to stay out about 10 minutes at a time.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

It's cold enough here, I just can't imagine being in Minneapolis in winter. Brrrr.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I am glad it got fixed so promptly and effectively.

I have been wearing nearly as many clothes as your impressive get-up, and my furnace is working just fine.

K.

[pameladean]

I would normally wear my impressive getup, but minus the boots and hat, and periodically minus the down vest. My office is cold.

I found out that if we turn the thermostat up to 68, my office is actually warm. But then other rooms are too hot, and also I don't want to think about the gas bill.

It's a pity you can't have my hot weather and I can't have your cold weather. I think we would both be better pleased.

P.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

We have hot and cold spots in our house, most of them cold, in my opinion. The guest room is where all the heat goes to evade me. Floyd used to have to open the window when he lived there. Erik is there now, and doesn't need the bed covers.

The basement is positively freezing, though.

K.

[pgranzeau.livejournal.com]

While I owned a house, I had a gas fired hot water heating system; the thermocouple would go out a couple of times each winter. I got to be an expert at relighting the pilot and heating up the thermocouple. Those long fireplace matches someone gave us once were very handy indeed.

I'm in an apartment now, with ceiling ducts and a heat pump. It heats the aparment with air warmed to something less than 90 degrees F., meaning it feels cold all the time. Even so, I knew there was a reason I moved to SE Virginia! It was 70 yeaterday (although it is currently 44). No fleece vests, long johns, multiple sweaters, or any of that stuff.

Quilts

[biblio-tech.livejournal.com]

In times like this, you need a Whole House Down Quilt (TM-I wish) rated R40 and conveniently packed in its own stuff sack (17"x20" Large down to 4" x 5" Dog house). Keep one in the attic for emergencies.

We had our furnace red-tagged three years ago on the first day we needed it. Not as cold as this, but 3 days wait to get a new furnace. My houseplants died.

Re: Quilts

[pameladean]

Golly! What makes them red-tag a furnace? Copious quantities of carbon monoxide?

P.

Re: Quilts

[biblio-tech.livejournal.com]

I think we had cracked heat-exchanger...so we would have had CO if we'd turned on the furnace. It was our "annual" inspection, which we'd put off till later in the year than usual.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't realize that you were dealing with stubborn pilots also. I hope you're toasty warm tonight.

[carbonel]

I'm glad you have heat again.

I'm very lucky that for such household emergencies, my first recourse is Greg. After all, I have his boat in my garage.

I did have the heat go out at my old house (your older house) several years ago, but I was on the Minnegasco plan, and not only did the guy come at 9 or so at night, he came back at 1 a.m. with the part that was needed to fix the furnace. Apparently Minnegasco considered no heat in the middle of a Minnesota winter to be something serious.

[pameladean]

In warmer weather, I think we'd have at least seen if Greg would be available at some point. He heroically came out and rigged the upstairs furnace to bypass the dead thermocoupler (this meant you turned the heat up all the way so that if you forgot to turn the furnace off you'd have a reminder, and then basically you just ran the furnace manually until he could get back the next day with a thermocoupler (from his supply, of course) and replace the old one. But it was too cold, I felt, to wait around.

All furnace people seem to regard no heat in the middle of a Minnesota winter as a grave emergency. Some of them just charge more than others.

P.