The Battle of the Furnace

It all began on a Monday night. I'm lying in bed when I notice that the furnace is turning on and off, and on and off. I'm wondering what wrong with the thing now. I know the blower motor is good because I just replaced the thing a few months back. I listened to it try a few more times and then went and turned the heat down so maybe it could rest for a second.

When I woke up the next day I never heard the furnace come on at all. The house was right where I set it at on the thermostat so I figured it may have gotten over whatever ailed it. I doubted it but I hoped. The test would be what the temperature what when we got home from work.

After we got home from work I went straight to the thermostat and confirmed my suspicions as the temperature had dropped to 59 degrees and I didn't hear anything from the furnace. So I tore the thing open again to see what I could find. My father in law was spending the night so he hooked me up with a guy that works for an A/C place in St. George. I talked to him for a bit and toyed with several things. He figured it must have been the control board. So he ordered one for me and had me go pick it up. I brought the thing home the next day thinking that this should fix all our woes. I matched the connections from the old board and had to do a little custom wiring job to get the old connections to fit with the new layout of the board. I snipped a few wires and used a few heat shrink connectors. After everything was hooked back up I tried it again and lo the exhaust fan kicks on. The ignitor kicks on. The flame fires up and then immediately goes out and the process starts over again until after the third time it just gives up. The error code from the light blames it on another part, but I know it's good.....now what. I call the guy back and he's stumped so I'm sent to another tech at the same place. I talked to him for 4 /12 hours testing connections. Plugging and unplugging things.....the works. Finally he has me play with the gas valve. It doesn't show any ohms dancing across that connection. So he figures it's a gas valve. A day or two goes by and he can't find anyone that is open to get me a gas valve so he has me start calling places. No one will sell one to me because I'm not licensed and there are restrictions on such things.

My mom called me and in the process I mentioned I'd like to have the furnace working. I guess I forgot to tell her things weren't being nice to me. Christmas was only a day or two away and we had no furnace. It was a good test of our new windows though! The coolest it got in the house was 50 degrees and after using a little space heater for a little while we were able to average about 65 degrees or so. With several space heaters and heat lamps on we got it back up to 70! I'm sure the electric bill will reflect that. Anyway my mom spread the news and I had family members coming out of the woodwork. My aunt and uncle brought us heaters. My cousins husband came over and helped find a gas valve and someone to pick it up. He then installed the thing and after all that it had the same response. So I talked to his HVAC guy and I replaced the flame rod. After replacing basically every part that can be replaced (with the exception of one) and not having any results I broke down and had the HVAC friend come and look at the thing Christmas eve. He gave me a 50% discount and charge only 50 per hour. Considering it took him probably 10 seconds to find the problem it was an FML moment. Apparently with the new control board there was an extra connector that I was unaware of that plugs into the board and has an extra wire the plugs into another spot on the board. After the connection was made it fired right up.

I don't know everything there is to know about Furnaces but I know more about my furnace now than I did previously. We have basically a brand new furnace so hopefully it lasts at least a year this time before something gives out again on me. I'm just so grateful that my family helped out where they could and that our new windows are as epic as they are!

California Howdy

So this morning we were on our way to work. Traffic was about average on the way in. Nothing out of the usual. We are puttering along and there is a truck trying to merge onto the freeway. I recognized it as one of the people that works in the same building as me. I sped up to get out of the way. My wife waved and then said "She just flipped you off!" This person didn't come across as someone that would do that. I didn't let it bother me. Anyone that is nasty to the person that supports their computer systems is asking for it!

We pulled in shortly after this person did and parked. I could see she was really embarrassed as we pulled up. I started laughing. I could see she knew it was us and felt bad. We met her in the foyer to the building and she apologized. She said she was having a bad morning and sort of took it out on us. She said she never does that it was just a bad morning and after she voted us number one she realized we were just trying to get out of the way. We just laughed and said not to worry about it.

Moral of the story is be careful who you flip off on the freeway. You never know who it may be!

Sorenson's Got Talent

My wife had a company Christmas party the other night. They were serving dinner and afterward having a little talent show with a few prizes for the winners. A lot of people knew that my wife could sing.....they just didn't know that she could SING! Most of the talents were just kinda funny things. Not really a serious competition by any means. My wife was concerned that her talent wasn't a goofy talent like the rest. I told her not to worry about it and go knock them flat.

I've always enjoyed hearing my wife sing. It's even better when she has the element of surprise because I can face watch. The music starts and I start looking around the room. I'm pretty sure every person in the room dropped their jaw. A few eyes bugged out like a Volkswagen and a few "Oh my gosh!" and other expressions were uttered. I love watching reactions. After my wife had whipped out her opera song most people stood up and clapped (something no one else got).

She got 10's from all three judges. The first judge said "That was great but I couldn't understand you Spanish." The song is Italian. The rest commented on how great it was and that it just wasn't expected. Especially with how the rest of the talent show was going. She won $100 and the first place trophy to Sorenson's Got Talent 2012! That's two shows she has won so far :). People have been commenting on it for the last several days. It won't be long before we are banned from competitions at work because we keep winning.