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walkitoutI'm not going to comment further on the white stuff. Enough has already been said about it.
On Sunday night, I drove to the airport to pick up my yet another R. in my life, who kindly came out to visit me. Before I picked her up, as we were settling the kids in to bed, I noticed it getting a little colder. I tried turning on the gas fireplace; it wasn't working and my husband R. was not inclined to call anyone on a Sunday evening. Just get it looked at Monday.
Upon my return even later (I think by that point, it may have actually been technically Monday morning, in the after midnight sense), it was colder, and I went to bed. Around 5 a.m., I was cold enough to wake up from it, checked the thermostats, couldn't figure out why it was below 60 degrees on the second floor. I woke my husband up and he looked around (including outside) and then called the gas people. They came out an hour later, dismantled stuff until they found the bit with frozen water in it (a regulator that down-regulates from high pressure to intermediate pressure, IIRC; R. might chime in with details). They got it thawed out and dried out, reassembled and then it worked again. Furnaces came on. Aaaaahhhhh.
The whole experience made me really paranoid. When we had previously lost power (pre-generator, but in this house), we had trouble because we can't run the furnaces without electricity, as they have blowers on them; that was one of the major reasons to get a generator, altho we came up with a workaround (we're still trying to figure out why we didn't just run the gas fireplace, which puts out a lot of heat; our recollections are somewhat vague however, and we may have believed it wouldn't work without power either, altho it actually does). I'd never experienced have-power-but-no-gas; it's making me want to go buy a portable electric heater, which is honestly pretty stupid as an idea, yet profoundly tempting right at this moment.
On Sunday night, I drove to the airport to pick up my yet another R. in my life, who kindly came out to visit me. Before I picked her up, as we were settling the kids in to bed, I noticed it getting a little colder. I tried turning on the gas fireplace; it wasn't working and my husband R. was not inclined to call anyone on a Sunday evening. Just get it looked at Monday.
Upon my return even later (I think by that point, it may have actually been technically Monday morning, in the after midnight sense), it was colder, and I went to bed. Around 5 a.m., I was cold enough to wake up from it, checked the thermostats, couldn't figure out why it was below 60 degrees on the second floor. I woke my husband up and he looked around (including outside) and then called the gas people. They came out an hour later, dismantled stuff until they found the bit with frozen water in it (a regulator that down-regulates from high pressure to intermediate pressure, IIRC; R. might chime in with details). They got it thawed out and dried out, reassembled and then it worked again. Furnaces came on. Aaaaahhhhh.
The whole experience made me really paranoid. When we had previously lost power (pre-generator, but in this house), we had trouble because we can't run the furnaces without electricity, as they have blowers on them; that was one of the major reasons to get a generator, altho we came up with a workaround (we're still trying to figure out why we didn't just run the gas fireplace, which puts out a lot of heat; our recollections are somewhat vague however, and we may have believed it wouldn't work without power either, altho it actually does). I'd never experienced have-power-but-no-gas; it's making me want to go buy a portable electric heater, which is honestly pretty stupid as an idea, yet profoundly tempting right at this moment.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-19 04:50 am (UTC)The gas guy when checking the appliances with me explained.
The system that shuts down the pilot light has the hot end of a thermocouple as a sensor. This provides just enough current to run an electromagnet that keeps a gas cut off open & also power a second solenoid that operates the big flames. Very clever.
The regulator has a diaphragm & needle valve. The diaphragm needs to communicate with the atmosphere & so there's an opening (on the bottom of the device). Snow got deep, drips from the eves showered down & bounced up. Water got in & froze & stopped the diaphragm from moving & kept the needle valve from opening.
The same thing happened to the valve on the gas grill last year and once before (but that one had the hole on the side).