[Note the cross post. Follow-ups set to Ah, what luck. My furnace quit working last night. This is a long rant anda "poor me" post, not a request for help. So if you're not to inclined topoint and laugh at the clueless, you might not want to read on.I thought the trouble was the thermostat. The Lux 500 had given me troublemany times before; it showed the low battery warning even with freshbatteries literally if I touched it wrong when adjusting the temperature.A few days ago I noticed that it sometimes the Lux thermostat let thetemperature fall five degrees below the set point before the furnace (RuudSilhouette II) ran. I'd have to turn it to off and then back on, then itwould run ok for a few days. I was concerned about the Lux crapping outentirely, so I picked up a Honeywell RTH110B at Lowes. I didn't get aroundto installing it.Last night (New Years Day) at around 10 PM the temperature was in theupper teens, the coldest night we'd seen this year in Louisville. Myfurnace stopped running. I assumed it was the thermostat.The symptoms were: if I turned the thermostat to "off" then back to "heat"the furnace would begin to start. I'd hear the whine of the power vent.The the igniter (it's a pilot-less furnace) would glow, and then thenatural gas would start. The gas ignited fine, all burners looked perfect,but it ran for about five seconds then chopped off abruptly. This cyclerepeated two or three times then nothing until I turned the thermostat offand then on again.It was getting cold in the house, so I decided that now was a great timeto replace the thermostat. :-) I turned off the breaker to thefurnace, and swapped the Honeywell for the Lux.It was the first time I swapped a thermostat. I was disappointed at theflimsiness of the connections of the Honeywell. The screws were too damntiny, and the plastic back flexed so bad I feared it would break as Itightened the terminal screws. But nothing broke, and I completed the swapwith apparent success.Hoping I hadn't...

Did you invoice yourself for the emergency service call?

Why Do Furnaces Break On the Coldest Holiday Night of the Year?

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Tony Sivori 18 years ago

Good question. At least a few I would imagine.

Not really. But if it pleases you to think so, go ahead. In my case the thermostat had previously malfunctioned. Which I mentioned in the original post. What I didn't mention was that I don't like programmable thermostats so I wanted to replace it with a non programmable one.

You probably just skimmed the post before replying. I don't blame you. :-) I mentioned that I had only been in the house since May. The home inspector that I used did test the furnace and he said that it could use a cleaning. As far as hvac goes, I'm no one's long term customer.

I think you're drifting alright, the question is where. Maybe, if you would forgive the conjecture, into an over caffeinated state.

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scott21230 18 years ago

Just about everything is more likely to break down when it's used more or put to more stress. Duh.

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Zyp 18 years ago

Is that what it is? I woulda never guessed.

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Tekkie® 18 years ago

Zyp posted for all of us...

That explains the calllous' on my hand?

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ChrisJ 18 years ago

Lucky you that you were able to fix it.

Six years ago about 10 days before Thanksgiving our furnace caught fire (btw, this is an extremely inefficient method of heating one's house). We were able to put it out but not before the electrical controls were melted and the furnace was kaput. Fortunately we were home or the fire probably would've spread to the rest of the house.

So the next day we had a HVAC guy come out, he did some calculations and we ordered a nifty new furnace to replace the 42 year old melted one. The new furnace would be in on the Monday before Thanksgiving. We were happy until we learned that the weekend before was the opening of deer hunting season and there wasn't a single HVAC tech to do the job until after Thanksgiving. I guess it must be a requirement to have a current deer hunter license before you're allowed join the HVAC ranks. So we made due with electrical heaters and thankfully the weather stayed moderate.

Chris

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Dr. Hardcrab 18 years ago

Lucky you that you were able to fix it.

Six years ago about 10 days before Thanksgiving our furnace caught fire (btw, this is an extremely inefficient method of heating one's house). We were able to put it out but not before the electrical controls were melted and the furnace was kaput. Fortunately we were home or the fire probably would've spread to the rest of the house.

So the next day we had a HVAC guy come out, he did some calculations and we ordered a nifty new furnace to replace the 42 year old melted one. The new furnace would be in on the Monday before Thanksgiving. We were happy until we learned that the weekend before was the opening of deer hunting season and there wasn't a single HVAC tech to do the job until after Thanksgiving. I guess it must be a requirement to have a current deer hunter license before you're allowed join the HVAC ranks. So we made due with electrical heaters and thankfully the weather stayed moderate.

Chris

I'm not a hunter (but I play one on TV) but with my company, it's the same thing. Half are deer hunting and the other half are rabbit hunting on the Eastern Shore.

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Why Do Furnaces Break On the Coldest Holiday Night of the Year?

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