Peggy just called me. She's at the house with a tech from an HVAC firm her mom recommended, who was there basically to give us another estimate on the replacement. Instead, he examined the furnace and said, "your heat exchanger isn't cracked -- your gas valve is broken and stuck way too high!" The "symptom" that the original tech demonstrated as proof we had a major problem -- reduced air flow through the ducts, indicating a collapsed duct in our slab, which was why we had to get a new furnace (for attic mounting and ducting) -- just wasn't there when this tech checked things. (Which makes me very suspicious of the original tech, who was from a company known for its high prices and attempts to sell maintenance contracts with every visit. Why do we use them? Force of habit, since the first time I needed an emergency service and I picked the one with the biggest ad in the yellow pages.)
He's ordered a new valve, which will be expressed overnight; in the mean time he's turned the broken valve down to much safer levels and set the furnace to run overnight. We'll stay with my mother-in-law again tonight, and if the house is comfortable tomorrow afternoon, it means the "collapsed duct" issue was so much bullshit. (If it's real, well, the same thing that happened two nights ago should happen tonight -- overheating tripping a safety cut-off to the gas. And that will be that.)
Right now, though, I'm flying like a kite.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
He's ordered a new valve, which will be expressed overnight; in the mean time he's turned the broken valve down to much safer levels and set the furnace to run overnight. We'll stay with my mother-in-law again tonight, and if the house is comfortable tomorrow afternoon, it means the "collapsed duct" issue was so much bullshit. (If it's real, well, the same thing that happened two nights ago should happen tonight -- overheating tripping a safety cut-off to the gas. And that will be that.)
Right now, though, I'm flying like a kite.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.