Home Ownership Is Overrated -- Part III

The furnace conked out this weekend. Sometime before or during Friday night. I woke up in the morning, and the place was an icebox. 59 degrees (at that time). When Charlie started her whining to go out in the morning and have breakfast, I figured out what the deal was right away.

The bed was toasty warm, though, but the puppy was having none of this lounging around thing. And the Cub was with the folks knuckling down for finals*. So I had to get out of bed long enough to feed her, and then got back in bed. When I heard the empty bowl skitter across the floor, I jumped up, tossed her outside, and then back to bed. And when I heard her pawing on the door, I jumped up, let her inside, put her in the puppy kennel, and back to bed.

When I finally got around to getting up for good, I decided to hit the basement and hope I could see what the problem was. My furnace was from the 70's, which means it had a pilot light. If I were going to get that started, I'd need one of those fireplace lighters. So, off to do some Christmas shopping.

I got back, took the lighter and flashlight down to the basement and thought I'd see if I could get this running. As I've probably mentioned before, me doing home repairs calls to mind the metaphorical monkeys and a football.

This time I didn't disappoint. I tried to remember how I got the hot water heater started at the folks' place that one time. Something to do with holding down this one button, and doing something or other with the lighter, and voila.

Honest, that was the entirety of my knowledge of how to get a pilot light started.

Suffice it to say, I didn't get it working. I considered calling Steve, my coworker from whom I bought the house, but his number had disappeared from my phone.

Now, I have a new homeowner's policy that, with a $75 deductable, will fix everything in the house for free. But you have to work through them and their contractor, who, as it happens, didn't work on the weekends. Now, I was 80% sure it was just that I couldn't get the freakin' pilot light started (which they don't cover, by the way). But on the off chance I called someone to come out, and it was something else, I'd be on the hook for that guy's visit. So, I went for the safe bet: be miserable until Monday.

So I did all the things you do to get the house a little more warm when you don't have gas but no furnace:

1. Close all doors to every room you aren't going to be staying in.
2. Turn on the oven.
3. Fill up all the sinks and the bathtub with hot water. That one actually makes quite a bit of difference.
4. Go to Target and get an oil heater. This model was on sale for $35, and worth every penny.

The oil heater is awesome. It makes everything within three feet of it toasty warm. And if you put it in its own room with the door closed, depending on how big the room is, it will heat the entire room. I put it in my bedroom and closed the door. After an hour, it was like a bathtub in there.

I was a bit leery about getting something that I was only going to use for a couple days, but the Cub has complained that it gets cold in his room at night, and the basement is very chilly a lot of the time, so it'll continue to be used, I'm sure.

So, with the heater working, the dog and I slept very comfortably Saturday night. Until the morning, when the dog had to go outside again.

My dad came by on Sunday afternoon, determined to get the dern furnace working. And I remembered an old Word document that had Steve's cell number in it. So, while my dad took a look and tried to figure out how the furnace compared to the water heater, I called Steve.

Steve, it should be pointed out, is a mechanical engineer. Like most engineer people, if you ask them a question, they don't just want to answer your question. They want to explain what the problem is and how everything fits into the problem. The advantage being that you don't just get a solution to your problem, you get a solution to every problem like it. And even if he gets some details wrong, if you know what you're trying to accomplish, you can still get the problem solved.

The disadvantage being that the three minute explaination now takes 20 minutes.

So, after listening through the answer, which started: "The pilot light system has two parts, the pilot light itself and a thermocouple. The purpose of the thermocouple is..." I was armed with enough knowledge to try a few things and then call him back with more questions. But then the big picture came into focus, and I not only got it fixed, but now I know how pilot lights work and I'm reasonably confident that I could fix anyone's pilot light†.

Thanks, Steve!

So, the whole house was toasty warm within an hour, and freezing cold an hour after that. Turns out I forgot to put the front panel back on, and the pilot light blew out again. But then, having relit it and putting the panel back on, we were good to go.

And that's my story. Let it suffice to say, I'm feeling much less surly, and I learned a lot about how, um, thermocouples work.

* Yes, finals. He's in sixth grade, but they still give him finals. So while that school of his is overpriced, you do get some value for the money.

† Editor's Note: J will not actually fix your pilot light. Unless you get him dinner. You'd be amazed the stuff you can get J to do if you throw free food into the mix.