Furnaces & A Cold, Cold Winnipeg

So everyone enjoys ribbing Winnipeggers by calling Winnipeg by its alternate name: Winterpeg. Winnipeggers generally accept this and actually use the name as though it deserves to be on a roll of honour. As I mentioned in my article on The Great Flood of '06 the weather this year has been warm. In fact it has only been cold twice since I arrived into the city. however it has been cold in the apartment 3 times...

The day I arrived was during the beginning of the warm spell, but the apartment was cold. When I got to the house I went into the apartment and it was colder than it should have been, how odd I thought. We raised the temperature on the thermostat and the furnace kicked in. I was resonably vigilant and every time I checked the temperature was normal.

That was until the temperature dropped to an average daily temp of -23.9 on Jan 22^nd when the pipes froze and subsequently thawed. Again when we went into the unit the temperature was too low at 33F with the thermostat set to 50F. The furnace ignited while I was standing there pondering why it was too cold. That is when I discovered the electric heater in the first floor of the apartment and subsequently turned it on.

Last Wednesday, Feb 8^th, was the second cold day outside since my arrival. The average daily temp was a shivery -16.6C and I did not get home until 8:30pm after a long day and then a nice massage. When I pulled into the garage Michelle's sister was immediately there saying: "it's cold in the apartment". My thought was to restart the furnace and call a furnace guy in the morning. But the restart instructions include a warning that if you smell gas after shutting everything off (including the gas switch) and waiting 5 minutes then you should not restart the furnace but rather call in a repairman. I smelled gas so we waited for a repair guy.

For the record it was 55F in the apartment, the little electric first floor heater was nicely producing heat and the smell of gas was only apparant near the furnace. My sister-in-law did not want to move the kids into the house so they all stayed in the apartment and waited, and waited, and waited. The first repair company had a tech call us 1.5 hours after we called, only to learn that he had never heard of a Rudd furnace and that they wouldn't have the parts. What a waste!!! The second company advertised the furnaces they fixed and the guy showed up around 11:30.

The ignitor was reliable and there was sufficient gas pressure so no problems there (the smell of gas was probably my over-reacting). It turns out that the furnace could no longer consistantly sense if the ignitor was successful. So after the furnace turned on, it would check "did it light?" and get no response. The furnace then shuts down for an hour and tries again. This isn't a problem if it isn't cold out and the sensor is working at 75%. But when the temperature is low outside and the sensor doesn't work a number of times then it gets cold in the apartment.

I was up until 12:45 and I learned more about electronic furnaces than I had known before. Oh and last Friday I had a 1/2 cord of wood delivered so we don't have to rely on the house furnace as much. My story about being fire-challenged will have to wait until tomorrow.