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It might be warm, but its still cold |
| Posted by Adam on Jan 13 2010 |
Hey Everyone.
So have I got a story for you. It all started last night about 5:15 and 43 seconds (It may have been 42 seconds, but who's counting). I walked in the door, and took off my shoes (yes I'm wearing shoes in the middle of winter) and took off my coat, and had a sudden chill all over my body. I then let out the dogs, and went into the kitchen from the mudroom. BRRRRRRR! it was cold. I could hear the furnace fan on, but went to the thermostat just to check.....13˚C......Inside. Well right then and there I had to check and see what was happening in the furnace. I ran over to it as fast as I could (its like 3 steps away :P)and opened the peep hole (Oh grow up, its too see the flames in the furnace) and sure enough, there were no flames, no pilot light, no NOTHING. Just a really annoying fan. So I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the phone and Called myrica, who had left for her class about 15 minutes ago now, and told her she needed to come give me the car, so I could go get some electric heaters. So she came home, and I drove her back to school, and then I ripped around to Canadian Tire, and as it happens often in a small town, it is closed. No electric Heaters for me. So I race back to the house. I blashed through the door, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phonebook, and ripped it open (I didn't really rip it, I'm overemphasizing my actions) to the plumbing and heating section and called every one of the number on there for the Smithers area, and you wouldn't guess what happened....Not one of them had an emergency number to call after hours. Not one. So after calling all of them and leaving messages on the ones that had answering machines (there were 3 with them, I think), I called the park managers and asked them if they knew of anyone, and he told me there was a guy in the park who has a plumbing and heating business. So I ran out the door, and ran over to their house and knocked on the door, and they answered, and I asked them if they could help me and the answered, "Okay, I'll come over around 7:30". And like that, I had a new neighbor.
So 7:30 rolls around and he comes over and he opens up the furnace and he tells me that the pilot light is definitely out and that he'll relight it and get me to watch it and see what happens and to call him if it goes out. Took about 15 minutes. He was very nice.
So just before 9:00 ( I have to pick up Myrica at 9 from her class), I notice the furnace fan is on again and the furnace isn't actually turning on. SO I give the guy a call and he's like, "I was afraid of that, I'll be over in a few minutes". I told him that I had to go pick Myrica up but I should only be about 5 minutes. For at about 9:10, he comes on over and takes the whole thing apart, and sure enough, the thermocouple was fried. Now this is were I will separate it for the people who don't care about detail and those who do care about technical details. It you don't care, skip the next paragraph, if you do, read on.
A thermocouple is a device that acts as a safety in gas furnaces. It is also used in other gas equipment like fireplaces. What it does is when the pilot light it lit, it heats up the end of this thermocouple device. That energy is then converted into a small amount of electricity that is connected to a magnetic valve at the other end of it. This valve controls the gas flow to the pilot light. So if the pilot light goes out, the thermocouple doesn't have any heat to convert to electricity and the valve closes shutting off the gas flow to the pilot light. The problem was that the end of the thermocouple seemed to have been burned off, this means that the thermocouple wasn't getting enough heat from the pilot light to convert into energy to keep the magnetic valve from close, therefor shutting off the gas flow and as a result, the pilot light would go out.
So the pilot light was out and we had to replace the thermocouple. So he was there until about 10:15 and we got everything back together. All the while we where talking about different things like interesting call he had been on, how the business is going, how I could be their computer guy and I would love to setup a website for them, and more of that kind of stuff. So we turn the furnace back on (we switched it off so it wouldn't blow up in our faces) and low and behold, IT WORKS!!!! YAY.
And that was the adventure of last night. What a pain, but I got to know a new person and possibly set myself up for some computer work on the side in the future. And man was I tired this morning. Coffee is a very good thing.
Anyways, I hope to see some more comments on here not that I'm posting my update links on facebook. Please don't hesitate to say hi as a guest, or signup for an account so you can put your name on your comments.
Cheers
Last changed: Jan 13 2010 at 12:44 PM
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| By Unknown on Jan 13 2010 at 10:33 PM | |
| Yay - heat is good! Glad it's all working again. :-) Boy, thermocouples takes me back a ways... it's been a long time now since I studied instrumentation in engineering. It's amazing what can be done with two wires made from different metals. Darryl |
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| Yikes | By Andy Korvemaker on Jan 14 2010 at 10:36 AM |
| That's nuts. Silly little wires. I'm glad it's all up and running again. Sounds like quite a little adventure. | |
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