The Heat is On

So, my recently-replaced gas furnace igniter shorted out again. Lasted just under two weeks ...

My man Darren --we're on a first-name basis -- from A-Temp zipped on out and replaced it. This guy is so adept that he can remove the screws from the plate without looking at them, and he took the sucker apart, replaced the dead igniter, and had it back together in less than ten minutes from the time he walked in the door until he left. No charge.

As Darren tells it, for those of you with twenty-year-old Synder General forced-air gas furnaces, the placement of the igniter -- which is basically a piece of metal that looks like a narrow-tined fat fork that somebody stepped on and flattened -- is such that the intake sometimes blows dust onto it. Can't put a filter over the intake. Big enough particle, it shorts the sucker out. And since you can't light the furnace manually, that means you get motor humming away, but no fire.

Darren allows as how his personal record is one day between the time he installed one of these and then had it burn out. This is the third one we've had in eighteen months. Makes you long for the old pilot light and kitchen match days.

Eventually, we'll have to get a new high-efficiency furnace, the cost of which will probably be paid for in a few years by what we save in monthly gas rate. The BTUs can be less if it is more efficient at getting heat from the gas, or some such. But since my wife wants a new car, the furnace will just have to wait a while. Part is guaranteed for a year. We'll see how it goes ...