Furnace Fighter!

[Rubycon]

Many of you are probably watching "A Christmas Story" tonight or tomorrow...

The scene where the furnace starts making noise and Ralphie's father runs down the basement. The narrator used the term "most feared furnace fighter". Do people really do this? I think it's hilarious. Sometimes banging on something will right it in the meantime.

Back in the '40's that was probably an old coal furnace. Imagine then you had not only trash day but ash day too!

 

[shortylickens]

No, not really, but Jean Sheppard is an AWESOME writer and he coined so many cool phrases its difficult to list them all.
I highly recommend you read the books.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Shoveling coal from the bin chute was not an enjoyable task

Conversion to an oil burner was a welcome improvement

 

[Rubycon]

Shoveling coal from the bin chute was not an enjoyable task

Conversion to an oil burner was a welcome improvement

Then you have nozzles, inline filters, whistle valves, foot valves, cad cells, relays, pumps, barometric damper and oil delivery to worry about!

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Many of you are probably watching "A Christmas Story" tonight or tomorrow...

The scene where the furnace starts making noise and Ralphie's father runs down the basement. The narrator used the term "most feared furnace fighter". Do people really do this? I think it's hilarious. Sometimes banging on something will right it in the meantime.

Back in the '40's that was probably an old coal furnace. Imagine then you had not only trash day but ash day too!

I remember when I was VERY young and we had a coal fired stoker. There would be some loud noise and my Dad would go running downstairs to tend to it. Not cussing, but it was a 'clinker', so..

 

[IEC]

I remember when I was VERY young and we had a coal fired stoker. There would be some loud noise and my Dad would go running downstairs to tend to it. Not cussing, but it was a 'clinker', so..

Pellet stove or high-efficiency natural gas furnace for the win.

 

[Rubycon]

Pellet stove or high-efficiency natural gas furnace for the win.

Pellet stoves are interesting but if you run out of pellets can you burn anything else in them?

 

[dawp]

when I wa growing up, the house I lived in had an old coal furnace that had been converted to gas. that thing was huge and kinda looked like a large octopus with all the ducts.

 

[iamwiz82]

My parents both say that A Christmas Story reminds them of their childhood.

 

[Born2bwire]

There is something that Rubycon does not know the answers to!

D:

Oh God.. Oh God... Ok... don't panic... maybe she's just messing with us...

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Pellet stove or high-efficiency natural gas furnace for the win.

we were kinda lower middle class money wise then and that was what we had then.. Was always fun riding in the borrowed dumptruck to to the coal mine to get coal (egg sized I think) for it. Dad would dump in beside the house , no idea how many ton), and would spend the next days on and off shoveling it into the coal bin in through the basement window.

 

[Evadman]

At a store I worked at back in '98 the IBM server that controlled the registers failed and wouldn't turn on. It was a huge machine that was about 4' wide, 3' tall. I called the help desk, and they conferenced in IBM. I sh!t you not, the IBM guy said 'did you try kicking it?' I of course said no. The thing cost about 50k, I'm not kicking it.

The IBM guy said to kick it, so I did rather gently. The IBM guy heard my kick and he seriously said, 'no, you have to kick it harder than that'. So I kicked it as hard as I could with the inside of my foot, imagining it was a soccer ball.

It then powered itself on. I swear, I am not joking. Now I try kicking things all the time, and it has a surprising success rate.

 

[Red Squirrel]

At a store I worked at back in '98 the IBM server that controlled the registers failed and wouldn't turn on. It was a huge machine that was about 4' wide, 3' tall. I called the help desk, and they conferenced in IBM. I sh!t you not, the IBM guy said 'did you try kicking it?' I of course said no. The thing cost about 50k, I'm not kicking it.

The IBM guy said to kick it, so I did rather gently. The IBM guy heard my kick and he seriously said, 'no, you have to kick it harder than that'. So I kicked it as hard as I could with the inside of my foot, imagining it was a soccer ball.

It then powered itself on. I swear, I am not joking. Now I try kicking things all the time, and it has a surprising success rate.

LOL that is hilarious. Just the fact that IBM said that lol. If something actually went wrong I would hope that call was monitored! lmao.

Where I work the HVAC server is actually sitting in the maintenance office and is used as a workstation, that kinda scares me sometimes. I can just picture it now, somebody's solitaire game crashing the server causing the entire building's HVAC system to go down. lol

I hope there's manual override for everything lol.

Actually I just remembered something funny, our furnace used to have this issue with the motherboard where it would stay stuck in warm up mode and the blower would never kick in. Had to go open the cover bang inside a little then put the cover back on and the blower would start. They ended up having to replace the whole motherboard.

 

[Rubycon]

You betcha there's manual override! Most air handling units have their own motor control sometimes called a bucket. The control contractor has a switch on the front - OFF (center) AUTO (right) MANUAL (left). OFF is obvious (the version with DEET does a decent job of keeping the bloodsuckers away!) MANUAL energizes the motor starter and the motor will run continuously regardless of what the controller does. AUTO puts the controller (computer, etc.) in control allowing the motor to start and stop as needed, etc.

Yep sometimes with hardware you have to literally beat the copper out of it to make it work!

 

[foghorn67]

My grandfather was probably the 2nd most feared furnace fighter.

 

[todpod]

Pellet stoves are interesting but if you run out of pellets can you burn anything else in them?

No only pellets, some may also burn corn.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Then you have nozzles, inline filters, whistle valves, foot valves, cad cells, relays, pumps, barometric damper and oil delivery to worry about!

I remember running out of oil one cold winters night a couple of days before the kids were supposed to come home and walking down to the petrol station filling two 45 liter tanks of diesel and then walking home with them. After a few kilometers i started wondering if i would need to heat the house or just stand there giving off body heat to warm it up.

Anyone who uses oil in this day and age is daft, i don't know any worse way to heat your house.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

No only pellets, some may also burn corn.

Depends on the stove, some do have separate compartments.

Corn? Is that POPular in the US?

 

[DrPizza]

Many of you are probably watching "A Christmas Story" tonight or tomorrow...

The scene where the furnace starts making noise and Ralphie's father runs down the basement. The narrator used the term "most feared furnace fighter". Do people really do this? I think it's hilarious. Sometimes banging on something will right it in the meantime.

Back in the '40's that was probably an old coal furnace. Imagine then you had not only trash day but ash day too!

We just use the ashes for fill in the driveway so that we can widen our driveway for 6 vehicles.
<--- heats with coal.

 

[DrPizza]

I remember running out of oil one cold winters night a couple of days before the kids were supposed to come home and walking down to the petrol station filling two 45 liter tanks of diesel and then walking home with them. After a few kilometers i started wondering if i would need to heat the house or just stand there giving off body heat to warm it up.

Anyone who uses oil in this day and age is daft, i don't know any worse way to heat your house.

I was having trouble with our oil fired hot water tank yesterday, so I stuck in a propane hot water tank & a couple valves so that I'd always have a back-up. Oil: start taking a shower; as soon as that burner kicks on, start turning *up* the amount of cold. It recovers faster than we could use water. Propane: Took 4 times as long to heat the tank up. Country: not much choice.

 

[CPA]

Shoveling coal from the bin chute was not an enjoyable task

Conversion to an oil burner was a welcome improvement

Try having to chop wood in the snow and cold, as the wood burner was the only source of heat. Luckily, when I grew up, I got a good job and now my fireplace has fake wood in it

 

[Rubycon]

There is something that Rubycon does not know the answers to!

D:

Oh God.. Oh God... Ok... don't panic... maybe she's just messing with us...

Hey that's what's fun - learning along the way. I have no problem admitting if I don't know something or am wrong. It just can happen anywhere, any time. The answers are out there and the real knowledge comes from learning much more along the way!

Good stories mates!

Nothing like sitting around with a nice cup of cocoa talking about the heat!

Oil fired hot water (the engineers call it "Domestic Hot Water Generation" or DHWG for short!) is awesome! There is no faster way to recovery (endless hot water) than a Bock oil fired water heater. They have instant demand (tankless) but these have unusual requirements, namely the electric models will practically dim the neighborhood when the main contactor kicks in!

 

[IronWing]

We rented a place that had a furnace with electronic ignition. The circuit board was cracked. In order to get the thing started in the morning I had to go down into the basement, remove the front panel, and push on the middle of the board to flex it so that the contacts reconnected. Once the furnace started up it would stay running all day. I think the heat from the furnace caused the board to expand a bit so the contacts were okay as long as the furnace was warm.

 

[Rubycon]

Kind of silly just being a box with fire in it that keeps you warm...

People take things for granted like that until something goes amiss!

I cannot help overhearing conversations about this stuff and usually intervene. It's a great way to break the ice at the buffet line!

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

When I was a kid, most folks had coal burning furnaces that were then converted to fuel oil. Huge black octopuses living in the bowels of the basement. I remember banging on the gauges because they often got stuck and either told you that the furnace was stone cold, while sweat ran down your face or, that you were thirty seconds from going into orbit.

They made the most comforting 'grumbling' noises though.