Oil Furnace Not Coming On All The Time

[mdelfs]

Over the past few days I have noticed that my oil furnace doesn't seem to be coming on when we tell it to via the thermostat sometimes (but not every time). Here's what the chain seems to be:

1.) On the newer digital thermostat (which we have since reset, just in case), we tell the furnace to come on by raising the temperature (it seems problematic at night for some reason). Normally you hear an instant 'click' and the system is heard spinning up in the basement. Heat then comes on a few minutes later.

2.) What has been happening is no 'click,' no matter how high you tell the thermostat to go.

3.) Troubleshooting has been as follows: 1.) Pushing the reset switch on the furnace, which makes no audible sounds or anything--is it supposed to? 2.) Resetting the breaker (though all the while, power never seems to be interrupted at all at the furnace) 3.) Having to wait about 15-20 minutes and then the system seems to come back on most of the time.

4.) The oil tank indicator says the tank is 3/4 full (Do those indicators on top of the tank die or malfunction? Do I have a soon-to-be-empty tank?)

5.) The furnace was serviced and cleaned about 1 month ago.

Before I call the furnace people, I thought I would take a stab here.

Thanks!

[buffalobill]

[buffalobill]

[Al Schmidt]

I have a digital thermostat, which cannot close it's relay when the batteries get low. The rest of the thermostat appears to function.

Al

[mdelfs]

That was it! I had no idea that thing even had batteries! I changed them and the display is now brighter and it fires each and every time I tell it to! Thanks, Al!

messagenews: [e-mail]...

[m Ransley]

Check the batteries in the thermostat, I should check mine.

[Al Moran]

A malfunctioning oil furnace is the worst kind for a do it yourselfer to mess around with. Call a licensed hvac tech to look at it before you kill yourself or your family.

- All the free heating and air answers you want!

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Yep. He could have killed himself replacing those AA batteries.

While your advice in generally correct, this time is sure paid off to post a simple request and solve the problem for $1 instead of a $100 service call.