Furnace update
Nov. 30th, 2005 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerThe short version: it's fixed now.
The long version: the appointment was for sometime today. They could call me on my cell phone, but I needed to be no more than fifteen minutes away. So, I could take Molly to preschool, but taking her to her swimming lesson could really be a problem. (If they called while I was at the lesson, I'd have to make her get out, get her dried off and dressed, etc., and the whole process plus the ride home takes at least a half hour.) I sent e-mail to my mother, who said that if need be she could come over before I left to pick up Molly, and babysit Kiera and let the furnace guy in when he arrived.
He arrived at a little before two. (Disrupting my attempts to get Kiera to take a nap, but she seems to be migrating to an every-other-day nap schedule anyway.) Did I mention in my last post that we had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago? That time, it was determined to be a clog in the pipe that drains the water down from the furnace to the drain in the floor. The pipe outside the furnace is apparently not covered by Minnegasco Service Plus, but he disconnected the clogged part and set it up to drain into a large plastic box thing, instead, and then told us what to buy at Home Depot and how to hook it up. I hadn't gotten around to it, though, which turned out to be just as well, since we would have been convinced that the clog was in that part of the line again and would have torn out all my hard work. And then I would have been furious because there would have been no clog in the line.
There was a clog in the pipe, but much further up, closer to the furnace. The furnace guy disconnected it and cleared out the clog. Here's what was happening, as I understand it: water condenses as the furnace runs, and is supposed to drain out through a pipe. If it gets clogged, the furnace shuts off. Our pipe was partly but not entirely clogged: water could trickle through. So when we'd shut the furnace off, the water would have a chance to clear out, and that's why it would work again, briefly, when we turned it on five minutes later. When we shut it off overnight, all the water had a chance to get out, which is why it worked just fine when Ed turned it on in the morning and didn't start flaking out again until mid-afternoon.
The furnace guy unclogged the pipe, gave me a new drain line (so I'm saved from a trip to Home Depot), and suggested -- well, "suggested" is probably an inadequate word, he clearly felt really strongly about this -- that I switch to the cheap furnace filters, instead of the fancy Ultra-whatever 3M kind. He said they make the furnace work way too hard, and it's not worth it unless you have really bad allergies or something (and even then, he suggested a cheaper variety, not the Ultra-whatever kind). I'm pretty much willing to go with it if someone who is an expert on something tells me that the cheapest version is much to be prefered, so this evening I returned the two unused fancy filters to Target and bought some of the cheap kind (at a hardware store, since Target doesn't carry the fiberglass sort) instead.
Oh, also, I mentioned the smell. He said my CO level was fine and he didn't think it was anything furnace-related. Haddayr says she's smelled the same thing near where she lives, so maybe it's something in the environment. Who knows?
Since my mother was checking in at 2:30, I asked him at 2:30 if he thought he'd be done by three. He assured me he would. He wasn't. He didn't go a whole lot past three, but this still caused me a bit of stress since I'm supposed to pick Molly up at 3:15. I wound up calling her preschool to let them know I'd be late, and then being late by such an insignificant amount that I shouldn't have bothered. Which just kind of figures.
The girls played on the playground, I took Molly swimming, we came home and I got them snacks, then changed Kiera into a swim diaper and bathing suit so that Ed could take her swimming. Then Molly and I went to Target (see above). Wednesdays are unreasonably hectic right now anyway, and the addition of the furnace stuff (plus the mouse), well. It's a good thing I have a crock pot. (I cook on Wednesdays because Ed takes Kiera swimming.)
I have to say, though, I wish it worked out this conveniently every time I procrastinated on a home repair job.
The long version: the appointment was for sometime today. They could call me on my cell phone, but I needed to be no more than fifteen minutes away. So, I could take Molly to preschool, but taking her to her swimming lesson could really be a problem. (If they called while I was at the lesson, I'd have to make her get out, get her dried off and dressed, etc., and the whole process plus the ride home takes at least a half hour.) I sent e-mail to my mother, who said that if need be she could come over before I left to pick up Molly, and babysit Kiera and let the furnace guy in when he arrived.
He arrived at a little before two. (Disrupting my attempts to get Kiera to take a nap, but she seems to be migrating to an every-other-day nap schedule anyway.) Did I mention in my last post that we had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago? That time, it was determined to be a clog in the pipe that drains the water down from the furnace to the drain in the floor. The pipe outside the furnace is apparently not covered by Minnegasco Service Plus, but he disconnected the clogged part and set it up to drain into a large plastic box thing, instead, and then told us what to buy at Home Depot and how to hook it up. I hadn't gotten around to it, though, which turned out to be just as well, since we would have been convinced that the clog was in that part of the line again and would have torn out all my hard work. And then I would have been furious because there would have been no clog in the line.
There was a clog in the pipe, but much further up, closer to the furnace. The furnace guy disconnected it and cleared out the clog. Here's what was happening, as I understand it: water condenses as the furnace runs, and is supposed to drain out through a pipe. If it gets clogged, the furnace shuts off. Our pipe was partly but not entirely clogged: water could trickle through. So when we'd shut the furnace off, the water would have a chance to clear out, and that's why it would work again, briefly, when we turned it on five minutes later. When we shut it off overnight, all the water had a chance to get out, which is why it worked just fine when Ed turned it on in the morning and didn't start flaking out again until mid-afternoon.
The furnace guy unclogged the pipe, gave me a new drain line (so I'm saved from a trip to Home Depot), and suggested -- well, "suggested" is probably an inadequate word, he clearly felt really strongly about this -- that I switch to the cheap furnace filters, instead of the fancy Ultra-whatever 3M kind. He said they make the furnace work way too hard, and it's not worth it unless you have really bad allergies or something (and even then, he suggested a cheaper variety, not the Ultra-whatever kind). I'm pretty much willing to go with it if someone who is an expert on something tells me that the cheapest version is much to be prefered, so this evening I returned the two unused fancy filters to Target and bought some of the cheap kind (at a hardware store, since Target doesn't carry the fiberglass sort) instead.
Oh, also, I mentioned the smell. He said my CO level was fine and he didn't think it was anything furnace-related. Haddayr says she's smelled the same thing near where she lives, so maybe it's something in the environment. Who knows?
Since my mother was checking in at 2:30, I asked him at 2:30 if he thought he'd be done by three. He assured me he would. He wasn't. He didn't go a whole lot past three, but this still caused me a bit of stress since I'm supposed to pick Molly up at 3:15. I wound up calling her preschool to let them know I'd be late, and then being late by such an insignificant amount that I shouldn't have bothered. Which just kind of figures.
The girls played on the playground, I took Molly swimming, we came home and I got them snacks, then changed Kiera into a swim diaper and bathing suit so that Ed could take her swimming. Then Molly and I went to Target (see above). Wednesdays are unreasonably hectic right now anyway, and the addition of the furnace stuff (plus the mouse), well. It's a good thing I have a crock pot. (I cook on Wednesdays because Ed takes Kiera swimming.)
I have to say, though, I wish it worked out this conveniently every time I procrastinated on a home repair job.
