In which things get chilly

We got up yesterday to 52 degrees in Evan's room. I know it was 52 degrees because we'd left the space heater in Evan's room from the previous night. We hadn't turned it on, since the temps were supposed to moderate somewhat, and we didn't think it would get so cold.

I hustled Evan downstairs with the promise that it would be warmer down there. It was, but only by 5 degrees. The thermostat was flashing RECO. Now, I haven't the foggiest as to what RECO could mean, but since I couldn't get the thermostat to turn on the furnace, I figured that it wasn't good. Fortunately, Hunter puts .pdfs of their manuals on-line, and so I could look it up.

Of course, the manual isn't particularly helpful, and so I looked for the obvious. The circuit had not blown. Opening the door of the furnace showed that the pilot light was out. I put on a sweater and sweat pants and put Evan in a hot bath, and opened the blinds on the sunrise side of the house.

Chris came home shortly, ill at work. He took a look at it, and tried to follow the instructions on the outside of the furnace door. Of course, nothing in the diagram resembled anything inside the furnace, and so he too was stymied, which meant that he had to call for help. The furnace repair guy showed up at 1:30 pm.

It is the way of misbehaving computers, automobiles, cats, and furnaces that, once the person who can fix them is present, they function perfectly properly, thank you. Thus, when the furnace door was replaced by Mr. Furnace Repairman, the thing came on without prodding or protest. Mr. Repairman then spent the next hour trying to get it to fail again, without success. We did make a few minor adjustments – changed the batteries in the thermostat, turned up the fan speed, tightened screws and bolts. We had of course purchased the super heavy-duty anti-allergen filters for the furnace, which he said were too dense and could be contributing to lower circulation and thus overheating. Of course in the process of trying to get it to fail, he got the temp in the house up to the point where I had to strip down to my tank top.

So, we’ve got heat again, at least until what Mr. Repairman couldn’t find goes haywire again. Hopefully it won’t be on a 0° night. He did note that the air conditioner coil was about shot. I expect to see him again in July.