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Nov. 20th, 2006 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe opera (Nabucco by Verdi) went well and I'd have written a thing about it on Sunday night but during the time I had blocked out for doing that, I was being immensely stupid in a basement in Everett.
I got home from the opera and checked the damn machine. There was no heat at 219. Fine. So I went to 219 to see about the lack of heat. I pushed the red button on the furnace because all furnace troubleshooting starts with the red button. The furnace made all the starting-up noises but did not actually start. (There is a small window that you can use to peep inside the furnace like it's a coin-operated porno thing in case you can't hear the woof! when it lights.)
I looked at the fuel tanks. The gauge said there was fuel in it. I knocked on the fuel tank anyway. It sounded like there was fuel in it. (This is a skill you develop after two or three calls about lack o' heat caused by lack o' fuel oil.) We have scheduled fuel delivery to that building, so we probably hadn't run out, either. There are two fuel tanks, but I only checked one of them because they go into the same line before the fuel filter. (Two not-airtight containers of fluid, even if they are different sizes and shapes, that are connected at the bottom by a smallish pipe thing will have the same level of fluid. If one's full, the other should be. Note the word *should*. It's very important.)
I cracked the bleed valve and hit the button again. The bleed valve is where you can take air out of the fuel line (because it doesn't go away on its own) and also see that there is actually fuel getting to the fucking fuel line. This is a good second step if pushing the button does not fix the problem AND you're getting all the right noises when you push the button. There was fuel oil, not foamy, just nice and red. (This is what it is supposed to look like.) I closed up the bleed valve right quick (because otherwise it fills up the container that you put under the bleed valve and makes the basement smell like fuel oil. I do not like eau du fuel oil.) and the furnace still did not start.
Hrm.
Next, I looked to see that the transformer was making sparklies for to make the FLAME ON. (This was kind of fun. 219 has a flip-up transformer. To test the sparkly power of the transformer, you expose the terminals of the transformer [here, by flipping it up] and get your large screwdriver-for-prying [which, I should add, has a nonconductive handle]. Then you push the red reset button and lay the screwdriver-for-prying acrost the terminals of the transformer. Move the screwdriver away from the terminals to draw up sparklies like you are making mit der mad szience. The sparklies should draw robustly for at least half an inch. If you can't draw happy sparklies, the transformer is ineffective. CAUTION: Do not touch terminals with hands. Do not use a screwdriver with a conductive handle. Transformer terminals bites, they does, and you do not want them to bite you. Iffn they bites you, you will be sorry.) There were good sparklies and the transformer terminals DID INDEED sit down onto the metally bits of the nozzle assembly like they're supposed to sit.
So, I removed the nozzle assembly and looked at it. The nozzle looked good and air went through it. The thing that shapes the cone-of-spray (Some of these are attached to the furnace. The one for 219 is attached to the nozzle assembly.) was not all crufty and yuck. The metally bits what carry the sparklies from the transformer terminals to the nozzle , they looked okay enough. (Sometimes the metally bits can melt and not be in the right spot to carry the sparklie to the atomized fuel oil that is coming out of the nozzle. If you think that this might be the case, you can adjust the metally bits using the nickel rule to put them in the right location.) I couldn't find the problem. Everything that I knew how to look at looked good. *sigh* I gave up and called for help.
Help arrived and, in amazingly short order, fixed the problem. Here is a diagram of the problem. The solution is left as an exercise for the studio audience. Note: You have all the information you need to solve the mystery of why the furnace will not run. We will be getting a bill from the help I summoned because I was too fucking dumb to solve this problem.
It is a good thing that the basement did not have a desk because I was totally *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*.
Want to know the real icing on the cake? Three weeks or so ago, I had this exact same fucking problem with Mrs. I's furnace at 321. The exact same problem. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I am stupid.
How come the fuel line bled and looked okay when I tried that? Because it takes a while for all the fuel to drain out of the tank. It's like getting the last of the paint out of a paint bucket. If the furnace has been sitting in a not-running state (where it needs to have the reset button pushed) for a while, you can have enough fuel in the line to make it look okay for about half a bleed cycle. This was apparently what happened to me. *sigh*
For future consideration: Check *both* fuel tanks for to see if they match in fullness. If they don't match, solve that problem first. Never trust that the valves are left in an open position, verify them every time. (In a perfect world, our fucking fuel oil tanks would have fucking quarter-turn ball valves instead of fucking dumb-ass round-handled gate valves.) Run through more than one bleed cycle just to be sure. (It's like a pint of fuel oil per... this is not a hideous amount of fluid and most of our furnaces have a container handy for using to bleed them.) Loosen nut on fuel filter to see that the fuel is getting at least that far. (This was something I didn't try here because I was operating under the erroneous idea that the fuel thing was happening okay. I am an idiot.)
I got home from the opera and checked the damn machine. There was no heat at 219. Fine. So I went to 219 to see about the lack of heat. I pushed the red button on the furnace because all furnace troubleshooting starts with the red button. The furnace made all the starting-up noises but did not actually start. (There is a small window that you can use to peep inside the furnace like it's a coin-operated porno thing in case you can't hear the woof! when it lights.)
I looked at the fuel tanks. The gauge said there was fuel in it. I knocked on the fuel tank anyway. It sounded like there was fuel in it. (This is a skill you develop after two or three calls about lack o' heat caused by lack o' fuel oil.) We have scheduled fuel delivery to that building, so we probably hadn't run out, either. There are two fuel tanks, but I only checked one of them because they go into the same line before the fuel filter. (Two not-airtight containers of fluid, even if they are different sizes and shapes, that are connected at the bottom by a smallish pipe thing will have the same level of fluid. If one's full, the other should be. Note the word *should*. It's very important.)
I cracked the bleed valve and hit the button again. The bleed valve is where you can take air out of the fuel line (because it doesn't go away on its own) and also see that there is actually fuel getting to the fucking fuel line. This is a good second step if pushing the button does not fix the problem AND you're getting all the right noises when you push the button. There was fuel oil, not foamy, just nice and red. (This is what it is supposed to look like.) I closed up the bleed valve right quick (because otherwise it fills up the container that you put under the bleed valve and makes the basement smell like fuel oil. I do not like eau du fuel oil.) and the furnace still did not start.
Hrm.
Next, I looked to see that the transformer was making sparklies for to make the FLAME ON. (This was kind of fun. 219 has a flip-up transformer. To test the sparkly power of the transformer, you expose the terminals of the transformer [here, by flipping it up] and get your large screwdriver-for-prying [which, I should add, has a nonconductive handle]. Then you push the red reset button and lay the screwdriver-for-prying acrost the terminals of the transformer. Move the screwdriver away from the terminals to draw up sparklies like you are making mit der mad szience. The sparklies should draw robustly for at least half an inch. If you can't draw happy sparklies, the transformer is ineffective. CAUTION: Do not touch terminals with hands. Do not use a screwdriver with a conductive handle. Transformer terminals bites, they does, and you do not want them to bite you. Iffn they bites you, you will be sorry.) There were good sparklies and the transformer terminals DID INDEED sit down onto the metally bits of the nozzle assembly like they're supposed to sit.
So, I removed the nozzle assembly and looked at it. The nozzle looked good and air went through it. The thing that shapes the cone-of-spray (Some of these are attached to the furnace. The one for 219 is attached to the nozzle assembly.) was not all crufty and yuck. The metally bits what carry the sparklies from the transformer terminals to the nozzle , they looked okay enough. (Sometimes the metally bits can melt and not be in the right spot to carry the sparklie to the atomized fuel oil that is coming out of the nozzle. If you think that this might be the case, you can adjust the metally bits using the nickel rule to put them in the right location.) I couldn't find the problem. Everything that I knew how to look at looked good. *sigh* I gave up and called for help.
Help arrived and, in amazingly short order, fixed the problem. Here is a diagram of the problem. The solution is left as an exercise for the studio audience. Note: You have all the information you need to solve the mystery of why the furnace will not run. We will be getting a bill from the help I summoned because I was too fucking dumb to solve this problem.
It is a good thing that the basement did not have a desk because I was totally *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*.
Want to know the real icing on the cake? Three weeks or so ago, I had this exact same fucking problem with Mrs. I's furnace at 321. The exact same problem. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I am stupid.
How come the fuel line bled and looked okay when I tried that? Because it takes a while for all the fuel to drain out of the tank. It's like getting the last of the paint out of a paint bucket. If the furnace has been sitting in a not-running state (where it needs to have the reset button pushed) for a while, you can have enough fuel in the line to make it look okay for about half a bleed cycle. This was apparently what happened to me. *sigh*
For future consideration: Check *both* fuel tanks for to see if they match in fullness. If they don't match, solve that problem first. Never trust that the valves are left in an open position, verify them every time. (In a perfect world, our fucking fuel oil tanks would have fucking quarter-turn ball valves instead of fucking dumb-ass round-handled gate valves.) Run through more than one bleed cycle just to be sure. (It's like a pint of fuel oil per... this is not a hideous amount of fluid and most of our furnaces have a container handy for using to bleed them.) Loosen nut on fuel filter to see that the fuel is getting at least that far. (This was something I didn't try here because I was operating under the erroneous idea that the fuel thing was happening okay. I am an idiot.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-21 12:34 pm (UTC)Managed to develop an instant, quite spectacular case of bleeding scalp wound. Boy, did that freak the crowd. I have never blown my "poker face" in quite so badly a fashion before, and have vowed never to do so again. Needless to say, I wasn't in the game for much longer... And *still* I wasn't the biggest idiot at the deaddog. That'd go to whomsoever it was that tried to burn down th' hotel...
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Date: 2006-11-21 12:44 pm (UTC)They're burning down the hotels now? Yowza. Otakorp has really gotten wild and crazy since I departed that vale of tears.