In mid-October, I wrote about the home warranty renewal. We ultimately decided not to renew after careful consideration. I began to get nervous a short while later when we turned on the heat for the first time this fall... and the basement and main floor filled with smoke. Not a lot of smoke, granted, but unnerving regardless. My unease increased as the warm air from the vents periodically smelled a bit like plastic. When the cold settled in for good last Friday, my fingers were crossed. I would not get into a frenzy of worrying.
The main floor and basement were cold all weekend, and by Sunday we realized the temperature never seemed to pass 66 degrees. With drafty windows and doors along the back of the house, that's lower than comfortable for us. As Monday and Tuesday passed, we began to think it was time to call for service--it was COLD. We called the same service company we had used before, and they came out today.
The service guy discovered that the fan was not activating, so the hot air was not getting pushed into the ventilation system. The furnace was running fine, and thankfully has a shut-off function for when the unit reaches a set high temperature. As you might imagine, all that hot air going nowhere while the furnace was still running was, well, less than ideal. Warm air was still coming out of most of the vents, although a bit more slowly.
After running a bypass on a couple of the wires, the fan kicked on. And stayed on once the wiring was reattached. With the error light on the unit off, and the fan working after turning the temp down and back up, the service guy said that he didn't want to sell us something we didn't need (they would have to order any parts anyhow), and as it appeared to have just reset, to call him back if it started acting up again. Somewhat rare, but he had seen it from time to time.
This is the second time we've used this company, and they're permanently going in my address book. Companies don't always seem to realize that by not upselling us to the max right now, they can have years of maintenance business.
Here's how we dealt with the problem:
- We didn't have much to deal with, really, since we have separate systems -- heat pump for the top floor with bedrooms, and the gas furnace in question for the main and basement. Since we could sleep comfortably, things really weren't that bad. Plus we have a space heater for situations just like this.
- First thing we tried was turning the thermostat off and on. Cutting the power is always one of the first things I try, it fixes a surprising number of problems. It would appear to work for about 30 minutes, then go back to cold.
- We also found the manual for the thermostat online, and made sure that it wasn't just programmed wonky. Since we'd used the heat plenty last winter, I thought maybe it was just a glitch with the thermostat. I took the batteries out and once I put them back in, the heat seemed to work for a couple of hours. It didn't last the night.
Now we have blissful heat again, restored in a somewhat random way. I was dreading a big expensive repair, and it looks like that disaster may have been avoided. There was a charge for the service call, but it really wasn't too bad, and for the moment I still think we made the right decision about the home warranty (this might change, of course, at the onset of the next disaster).
I hope I don't jinx it with this post...
Incidentally, Clever Dude Personal Finance & Money had a guest poster today, J. Money, on the topic of renewing a home warranty. As I read it this morning, long before the service call, I thought fate might be laughing at me. Or maybe just giving us a break. Looks like I might be lucky this time.
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