Wednesday, March 26, 2014

My Furnace Thermostat Crashed

     When most thermostats die they have the decency to quietly give up and not create a scene. Sometimes we can tell that the thermostat is on it's last legs and replace it. Sometimes it just quits and we notice the house cooling off or we notice that the furnace isn't running.

     Not my thermostat. Nothing quiet about it's demise. It went out kicking and screaming. 

     One night about six weeks ago my wife got up and hollered , "Red, the roof is caving in." It was at a time when there was much snow on the roof and some roofs were caving in. She said there was ticking and she was sure the roof was caving in. I ignored her as long as I could. I could not hear any ticking. If a roof was caving in there would be loud bangs. I finally turned over so my good ear was off the pillow. I could hear ticking, but it wasn't a roof caving in. I got up quickly to find the source of the ticking. I just stepped in the hallway and realized it was the thermostat. It was shorting off and on. I also noticed that it was quickly turning the burner off and on. That wasn't good so I raced downstairs and turned off the power to the thermostat. 

    Well, it was minus 30 C and the stores weren't open so I fiddled with the thermostat and finally got it set to keep the furnace on.

   Now that was a lot of excitement for a 74 year old at four AM.

   We checked with the company which thermostat would be correct for us and went out and bought it. I quickly installed the thermostat . I found the print on the new thermostat was very small I had to use a magnifying glass. Well, what do you do?  We kept the thermostat. About 6 weeks later a gremlin showed up in the new thermostat. "Return" would appear in the afternoon and turn the furnace off. I couldn't get rid of this gremlin. I could set the furnace to run but I wanted the automatic feature.

   So I took my crazy thermostat back and bought  one with big print.

   Now I have a thermostat like my new car. It's a lot smarter than I am. This thermostat will tell me when the filter needs to be cleaned???

   Needless to say,  I've had a crash course on furnace thermostats and my wife has been given the nickname "Chicken Little."