A different kind of housewarming

The other night I came home from work to discover my furnace was blowing cold air through the vents.

Like any good homeowner would do, I ventured down to the basement and looked at it.

There was a sign on the furnace:

I phoned the number and the nice man said they’d be happy to send someone over, but because it was after hours, it would cost $129. I asked how much it would cost if I waited till morning: $89. So I asked if it was perhaps something I could fix myself, and to my surprise he assured me I probably could. He instructed me to follow the instructions on the panel.

So I laid down on the floor beside the panel and read the instructions. It was mostly about how not to blow yourself up, so I read it several times. The warnings were about electricity and gas, two things that both scare me because if you make a mistake, they don’t even give you a chance to have one last thought before you die.

Then, like any good blogger would do, I took photographs of the furnace, because I know you’ve all been dying to see my furnace. And I wanted to procrastinate a bit before attempting not to blow myself up. Here’s the furnace, looking all innocent:

Then I mustered up my courage and followed the instructions.

First step: turn the thermostat off. Easy.

Second step: Turn the power to the furnace off. This wasn’t so easy. I wondered if I was supposed to flip the breaker off, but none of the breakers were labelled “Furnace.” Two of them were labelled “Hot Water Heater” but none of them were labelled “Furnace.” However there was a switch above the basement door which looked like it might do the trick. So I got a stool, climbed up there and flipped the switch.

Third step: Remove the panels on the furnace. Easy. (And once I’d done that, I realized this made it much easier to read the instructions about how not to blow yourself up.)

Fourth step: Turn the gas control switch to OFF. This was hard. I couldn’t find any such switch. I studied the diagrams inside the furnace, but there was nothing labelled Gas Control Switch. In the bottom compartment of the furnace there was a switch that was automatically depressed when the panel was in place, and automatically released when the panel wasn’t in place. I decided this was the switch in question, and pushed it.

Fifth step: Wait five minutes. Easy. I passed the time taking more pictures of my furnace for you.

Sixth step: Get down on the floor and smell for gas. If you smell gas, don’t do and do do all kinds of things (for example, don’t use the phone or turn on or off any lights, and do get out of your house immediately and call for help). Fortunately I couldn’t smell any gas.

Seventh step: Turn the Gas Control Switch back on. This was psychologically hard, because I started questioning my sense of smell and confronting my mortality. But I finally did it, and it was okay.

Eight step: Replace the panels. This was hard.

Ninth step: Turn the power to the furnace back on. Easy.

Tenth step: Turn the thermostat back on. Easy.

Done! I was inordinately proud of myself, but the furnace still blew cold air.

My friend Ken called.

“Do you know how to get the pilot light in a gas furnace back on?” I asked.

“I think I’ve done it before,” he said, “Didn’t we fix your furnace at your apartment once?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, suddenly remembering, “We fixed it by agreeing we were both afraid of it so we called the landlord.”

“Oh, right,” he said, “I remember now.”

So he wished me luck, and I went back down to the basement and ran through the entire sequence again, doing exactly the same things with exactly the same results.

The third time I decided the problem was with Step 4: Switch the Gas Control Switch to Off. This time I was determined to find that switch, wherever it was hiding. After a few minutes I found an unlabelled switch on the little brown box, and I decided it would have to be the Gas Control Switch. And it was! I completed the sequence, and lo and behold, my furnace started blowing hot air!

I was enormously thrilled with myself. At that very moment I felt like a genuine, bona fide, full-fledged homeowner. For a brief moment I even found myself wishing something else would break so I could fix it, but then I came to my senses and took that wish back.