The day after I put out my winter preparedness note, I heard the heater make a long buzzing sound. I said to myself, that doesn’t sound right. Then, about an hour later, my wife said “do you smell that?”. I said no but I went upstairs and then I could smell a waxy smell, electrical-ish. I did some testing and it seems like the heater wasn’t working.

You can see from the thermostat that I have the power turned off. But, of all the things to happen right before the temperature drops to below zero for several days, this is close to the worst. At least you can take solace in the electricity is still on, this allows for the use of space heaters.

Fortunately, I do have several space heaters electric, propane and kerosene. It probably makes sense to move to one fuel, I think that is propane. Electricity doesn’t work when the power is out and kerosene has too many fumes. The one down side of propane is that the tanks are bulky but at least it is relatively affordable.

When I first learned that things were not working like they should, I turned off the power. It wasn’t terribly cold outside but the temperature started to drop throughout the day. I was using appliances and doing laundry so that kept the temperature at 67 before turning in for the day. There was a visible temperature wall between the bedroom with the space heater running and the rest of the house.

By the time I woke up in the morning, the temperature had dropped to 57 degrees. Based on what I was expecting, the service technician was going to validate that they were going to have to order a new motor. The best case scenario was that they would get it on Monday, after we had a weekend never climbing above freezing. I wasn’t cold yet but I was getting prepared for it.

The diagnosis was true, it was the motor. Then the technician asked if I wanted to try a universal motor. It wasn’t the OEM motor but it was also in stock and half the price they quoted me for a factory replacement part. I said, “I don’t understand try. Does it not fit or something?” He said, it had more power inputs. I have to admit, I still don’t understand the downside, it is called universal for a reason. I said yes, and it worked.

Having a spare furnace or even replacement parts of that sort are not really practical. The truth is, when they did the winter service in December, they said that the motor was ‘tired’. But, who really knows what that means? I said that I wanted to see a quote before I committed to anything. I mean, who really wants to spend another unplanned grand in December.

My wife thinks that I should have done the maintenance when they quoted it. She even said to me why wait? I am not doubting the technicians experience nor opinion but really define ‘tired’ for me. Nobody, including him could predict that the motor would fail on this day. If so, I would have scheduled the replacement for the day of the failure.

Of course, having back-up heat in general is a really good idea. In this climate, I could get by all summer without cooling and a lot of the winter, it might be unpleasant but at least the plumbing wasn’t going to freeze. That was my biggest concern. All things considered, I think the lesson is don’t just consider one opinion when making decisions. But gather the data and cross check others to see if they make sense. If the part had cost $200, I probably would have scheduled the repair but the fact that we were getting near $1000 was a little more than I was willing to just jump.

End Your Programming Routine: Nobody wants to spend a quick $550. But, had I not insisted that they come out and look, I would have been waiting all weekend for the motor to come in and paid twice as much. So, despite the drawbacks, I am pleased that the issue is fixed. And with central heat in the house, I am reasonably comforted that there will be enough heat not to freeze the plumbing.