Sunday Morning Coming Down
As my wife is now home from surgery and I can't yet leave her long enough that I could go to church, I decided to sleep in. This was easily possible because I raked the roofs off late last night, just about the time the snow tapered off.
The plow guy was in early and Lucy the Dog woke me up barking at him, but I soon dozed off again.
About 6 Lucy started whining at me and nudging me. I told her to go back to bed and rolled over, but she kept at it. Figuring she needed to go out, I got up and found the mobile home surprisingly cool. The thermostat said it was 61 deg. So I opened the front of the furnace and looked at the computerized control unit I installed a couple of years ago. It said ignition failure. So I hit the reset button and it started right up and ran well - for one cycle. Then when it restarted the flame popped, sputtered and gradually lessened until it finally just went out. It acted like it wasn't getting oil, or had water in it.
Figuring this was going to take awhile, I unloaded the clutter off the Alaska coal stove, plugged it in, and checked the settings. Then I couldn't find the metal box of coal mice to start the fire, so spent 15 minutes looking for that before I found it on the counter under a grocery bag. It started right up and I got it burning well and opened up the settings, plus plugged in the blower to circulate that heat through the ducts (effectively reversing the flow from the furnace), and opened and closed certain outlets to force enough heat to the far end.
Having gotten things back to "normal", I went back to bed for awhile to warm up.
About mid-morning I went out, got the snowblower out, and cleared a path to the oil tank. I knew there was a remote possibility it had gelled, though it never has in the 35 years we have lived here. But no, it ran freely at the tank water trap. There was a little water in the trap, but not much. So I went out briefly and bought a new filter, came back and cleaned the water trap and put it back, replaced the filter (which is inside where it is warm), with a new one (though the old one didn't look bad), and put everything back together. I ran it through a cycle and it ran perfectly. We will see! Since I have the stove going, I will keep that running for a day or two.
With the continual cycles of warm to cold to warm this year, there may have been enough tank condensation to get moisture into the filter, which then froze as cold oil was drawn through it. At least that is my present theory!
The rest of the day was spent in moving snow to make room in case we got any more before this melted. At least the snowblower kept running and no sheer pins broke.
Did some laundry. My wife is complaining the place stinks like kerosene! The joys of living in Upstate New York!
The plow guy was in early and Lucy the Dog woke me up barking at him, but I soon dozed off again.
About 6 Lucy started whining at me and nudging me. I told her to go back to bed and rolled over, but she kept at it. Figuring she needed to go out, I got up and found the mobile home surprisingly cool. The thermostat said it was 61 deg. So I opened the front of the furnace and looked at the computerized control unit I installed a couple of years ago. It said ignition failure. So I hit the reset button and it started right up and ran well - for one cycle. Then when it restarted the flame popped, sputtered and gradually lessened until it finally just went out. It acted like it wasn't getting oil, or had water in it.
Figuring this was going to take awhile, I unloaded the clutter off the Alaska coal stove, plugged it in, and checked the settings. Then I couldn't find the metal box of coal mice to start the fire, so spent 15 minutes looking for that before I found it on the counter under a grocery bag. It started right up and I got it burning well and opened up the settings, plus plugged in the blower to circulate that heat through the ducts (effectively reversing the flow from the furnace), and opened and closed certain outlets to force enough heat to the far end.
Having gotten things back to "normal", I went back to bed for awhile to warm up.
About mid-morning I went out, got the snowblower out, and cleared a path to the oil tank. I knew there was a remote possibility it had gelled, though it never has in the 35 years we have lived here. But no, it ran freely at the tank water trap. There was a little water in the trap, but not much. So I went out briefly and bought a new filter, came back and cleaned the water trap and put it back, replaced the filter (which is inside where it is warm), with a new one (though the old one didn't look bad), and put everything back together. I ran it through a cycle and it ran perfectly. We will see! Since I have the stove going, I will keep that running for a day or two.
With the continual cycles of warm to cold to warm this year, there may have been enough tank condensation to get moisture into the filter, which then froze as cold oil was drawn through it. At least that is my present theory!
The rest of the day was spent in moving snow to make room in case we got any more before this melted. At least the snowblower kept running and no sheer pins broke.
Did some laundry. My wife is complaining the place stinks like kerosene! The joys of living in Upstate New York!
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