All about nothing

Just in case any one is interested in our on going tale of furnace adventures, on Thursday they came in and the serviceman said that in the 2 stage furnace, the guys that installed it, had used a jumper, so that it was only running on the second stage so he switched it over and tested everything out. When it shut off, we had left it off to ensure that he would get a proper readout, so the house was getting cool and we had donned heavy sweaters. The furnace was running when he left and the house warmed up again to a comfortable living temperature and cycled off.

Some time later we realized that it hadn't come back on. We shut it off to reset it again and the furnace came on again and as soon as things heated up and it cycled off and it stayed off again, so we called to report it not working and were told that the only thing that they could think of was either a defective or damaged circuit board so they'd see if they could find a new one. Each time this has happened the furnace has quit late at night when places of business are closed, so it's been a challenge to get someone out her to look at it and it's been a challenge for them to get replacement parts. Some things you can carry on the truck, but you can't always have everything needed, there just isn't room. We were told that they'd let us know if they could get the part by midnight. At midnight, when we hadn't heard one way or the other we called again, and again, and again, each time getting the answering service who said they would relay the call. We finally got a sleepy response for the tech guy. They couldn't get the part and he'd forgotten to call back, but they'll give us a call the next day as soon as they get the part.

At this point we can reset the furnace and get heat, but after the latest adjustment instead of running normally for several hours or days, it runs one cycle and shuts off so we know if we go to sleep it will shut off within an hour. I have learned though this on going experiment that the internal temperature in the house will drop roughly one degree Fahrenheit per hour so if we change the setting to something like 75 then it will probably be okay as long as it doesn't get really cold outside. For you tender folk in the southern climes, 28F is not that cold for a night time temperature and insulated brick houses don't leak heat the same way that a wood house does.

So we turned on the space heater for the parrot and snuggled down under the electric blanket to wait for morning. As expected the furnace shut off and hubby tried to reset it in the middle of the night, but it wouldn't come on again. He tried again in the morning and it came on, but shut off after one cycle.

By noon the serviceman came with the replacement circuit board which he installed and it's been running perfectly ever since. Hubby thinks that the first guys might have cracked the circuit board trying to force cold stiff wires through the side of it to wire it up.

While testing the new circuit board we set the temperature high enough that the furnace came on, then opened the windows and doors to let the heat out so that the house would cool off enough for the furnace to kick in again which it did without trouble. In the interim the technician pulled the thermostat off the wall to make sure that everything was wired in correctly. The thermostat manual had an instructional card in it with fold lines that could be slipped into a slot on the thermostat so that you had a handy guide to refer to for setting the program on it. When the front of the thermostat is removed it just looks like a piece of card sitting there so the technician pulled it out. Not knowing what it was he threw it away. So now we have to look online for setting instructions.

All boring stuff, I know. I have zero tatting to show you. The last thing I tatted was the snowflake that wants to be a 3D something or other that I did January 31st. I haven't tatted since. I got that lovely shipment of thread and I haven't even opened it other than to take a picture of it. Now for some people that might not mean much, but I usually whip off something during the day. I might miss one day, possibly 2, but this has been 7 days and I haven't even picked up a shuttle except to move it. I don't even feel inspired to tat anything. Maybe I'll go embroider something until this funk has passed.