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Last Saturday, I woke up to a freezing cold house. I heard the furnace cycle on/off, but no heat, and then it went silent. Uh-oh.
This furnace and I have become best friends in the last year after buying the house last summer "as-is". The furnace was inoperable and I ended up replacing a bunch of parts myself and then paying a licensed HVAC guy to do an inspection and check my work. I saved a lot of money, and I'm very familiar with its operation now, to boot. (FYI, I don't recommend diving into your furnace if you aren't already familiar with basic health/safety precautions around flammable gases and high voltage!).
When it died on Saturday, I was able to diagnose that the ignitor was inoperable. It's like a burner element, they get brittle and eventually crack and can no longer complete the circuit. It's supposed to glow red hot during pre-ignition, and it wasn't. I found a new replacement for $24 (and paid for overnight shipping....brrrr). It arrived, I installed it, and it's working perfectly again--effectively saving myself almost $150 on a service call and taking time off work. A keen eye and a $24 part saved the day. Woohoo!
The weekend only got better. Saturday was a dry day for weather, and suddenly I was in the mood to fix things.
We have an older pickup truck ('02 Dodge Dakota) that's had a check engine light on since it was given to us. Code P0455 evap large leak. Truck runs fine, but the light is annoying, and the problem needed to be addressed. My other half said we should just take it to a dealer. NOPE. I know enough to know this is a vacuum line issue, so I checked out the lines and found nothing, but then I found an article on a Dodge forum that clued me into the fact that the evap canister in these trucks is exposed underneath and the rubber lines frequently fail. So I crawled under, and sure enough, there was a hose end split wide open, leaking air. I found a new hose for $6 and it connected right up. The "check engine" light is out and no more codes have been set!
I wish everything could be this easy (and cheap!). Sometimes it really pays off to poke around with a screwdriver before calling a pro. If you're handy and have some basic knowledge, you might end up saving yourself a lot of money!
This furnace and I have become best friends in the last year after buying the house last summer "as-is". The furnace was inoperable and I ended up replacing a bunch of parts myself and then paying a licensed HVAC guy to do an inspection and check my work. I saved a lot of money, and I'm very familiar with its operation now, to boot. (FYI, I don't recommend diving into your furnace if you aren't already familiar with basic health/safety precautions around flammable gases and high voltage!).
When it died on Saturday, I was able to diagnose that the ignitor was inoperable. It's like a burner element, they get brittle and eventually crack and can no longer complete the circuit. It's supposed to glow red hot during pre-ignition, and it wasn't. I found a new replacement for $24 (and paid for overnight shipping....brrrr). It arrived, I installed it, and it's working perfectly again--effectively saving myself almost $150 on a service call and taking time off work. A keen eye and a $24 part saved the day. Woohoo!
The weekend only got better. Saturday was a dry day for weather, and suddenly I was in the mood to fix things.
We have an older pickup truck ('02 Dodge Dakota) that's had a check engine light on since it was given to us. Code P0455 evap large leak. Truck runs fine, but the light is annoying, and the problem needed to be addressed. My other half said we should just take it to a dealer. NOPE. I know enough to know this is a vacuum line issue, so I checked out the lines and found nothing, but then I found an article on a Dodge forum that clued me into the fact that the evap canister in these trucks is exposed underneath and the rubber lines frequently fail. So I crawled under, and sure enough, there was a hose end split wide open, leaking air. I found a new hose for $6 and it connected right up. The "check engine" light is out and no more codes have been set!
I wish everything could be this easy (and cheap!). Sometimes it really pays off to poke around with a screwdriver before calling a pro. If you're handy and have some basic knowledge, you might end up saving yourself a lot of money!
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