This furnace, which heats the second
floor of our house, hasn't worked in probably 10 years. When it broke, our kids were younger, we had the doors open all the time to their bedrooms, and we have
an open floor plan in our house. The downstairs is open to the upstairs, and warm air rises. So we just overcompensated with the heater on the bottom floor. Not exactly the most efficient way to heat your house. And we're expecting to have a colder and longer winter this year. So, a couple of days ago, I decided it was finally time for me to take a look at this thing, and
see if it was something I could fix myself, or if I really needed to call a professional.
No, don't get up. The first thing you've got to do, of course, is troubleshoot, and figure out exactly what's wrong with this thing. Turn the heat on, make sure it's on "auto" and turn it up so that it clicks on. Can you see my hair? The fan IS on. And I kind of thought it would be because the air conditioning has always worked. So I figured the fan worked. But that's kind of a good sign. It could be that it's just that the pilot light is out, which
would be really awesome for me. (whistling the theme to "The Muppet Show") This is cool. Look at this, right down here:
"Operating Instructions" I guess that's on, so that means this
would be off. Wait five minutes What do I do up here for five minutes? Ah! Look that this! It's…..
Santa's wrapping paper! Has it been five minutes? (singing) This is boring sitting
up here. (singing) Test out the acoustics. (Bad opera singer imitation) (snoring) No, I don't want any more ice cream. Next it says "smell for gas." (Sniffing) I don't think I smell any gas up here. Turn this back on, and then turn the gas back on, and then somebody's got to go turn it on.
(yelling) Anybody? Hey, I'm in the attic! Somebody
come up here! (off screen) "Hi!" Hey! Hello! Hello my child. Can you turn on the heater? Well, it's making all kinds of noises I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be flames in these tubes right now, and there's not, so I'm thinking it's the igniter. Ah yes, okay, so you see back here? This is the igniter, and it clearly has some
corrosion built up on it. This little stick back here, this is known as the "fire stick," and it senses whether or not there's actually flames going through these tubes.
And if there's not, it will shut the system down, so that you don't have gas building up in these
tubes. Which is clearly dangerous. Now a lot of y'all technicians out there are gonna hate me right now, but… It looks this igniter is just attached with a few bolts on the side, and then it's plugged right here. It looks very
simple to replace. Removing the original igniter was actually very, very easy. It's held in with a bracket, with just a couple of little screws, and then it has
a little plug on the end.
And that's it! This is the new igniter, and this is
the old one. The old one did look just like this, except it was a little bit corroded. And as my husband was messing with it downstairs, it broke. So clearly, the integrity of this thing was compromised. I'm gonna turn the gas off here again,
and the power. I did check the power on this plug to make sure that it was getting power, because that can be a problem too, and it does. This is a little tricky to get into. Kind of a tight space in here. Notice here… Notice, this is hanging right in the path of one of these tubes. That's where it was before. Back here is where the igniter is
attached, and then you're just gonna plug it right back in where it was before. Then turn the power and the gas back on. And get somebody to turn the
heat on. Hey babe! Oh look! Can you see that in there? It's glowing! It was not doing that before. OHHHHHHHH!!! It works! Hey, I think it's working! ChickFix wins again! That's really cool! All right, so that was pretty awesome, but always tread lightly on a project like this.
Make sure you do a lot of research, and don't do anything that you're not comfortable with. There's a reason why people get paid to fix this stuff. Read the instructions, dummy. Whoa! (Laughing) That wasn't a good shot at all! They once told me they thought I had flying squirrels living up in my attic. It would be HILARIOUS if a squirrel came out here and scared the crap out of me. This thing's making all kinds of noises.
Kinda freaking me out a little bit. Is it gonna explode? This must have been designed by
a man, and probably a young man too..