I got a call from one of my tenants on Monday indicating the pilot light went out, and she wanted me to explain to her how to light it.  A disaster waiting to happen: gas, a match, and someone who’s never brought the two together with the intention of containing the result.

So I told her to go to the water heater, remove the metal panel and look to make sure the pilot light was actually out.  Her response left me scratching my head.  “No, there’s a flame there”, she replied.

“So why did you think the pilot light went out? Did you run out of hot water?”

“No”, she replied, “the air vents aren’t blowing hot air any more…”

Oh boy, we have a furnace problem, and those aren’t cheap.  On top of it, there is not a pilot light on modern furnaces, they’re all electronic ignition.

So after work I went over to the house to examine the problem myself, and sure enough, the electronic ignition had gone bad on the furnace.  It was getting gas, oxygen, but no spark.  The third and most critical part of the triangle required to make flame.

After calling about 30 “emergency” heating and air services, I came up with nothing.  All of them had about 6 calls in front of mine, which meant it could be 6 hours (or around 3am) before they could get to my furnace.  On top of that, they would charge overtime rates, and add 20% to the parts cost (which kind of peeved me a little).

So there is the dilemma: Do I spend about 600 large to fix the furnace at 3am, or do I wait till the next day, all the while the outside temperature is dropping like a rock, with lows around 10 degrees for the night…

After discussing it with the tenants, they agreed to make an appointment for the next day.  Great.  But now I need to keep the pipes (and the humans) from freezing.

I had the tenants turn the water on to all faucets and fixtures through the night, shut their bedroom doors, and use space heaters to keep their rooms warm (of which they were doing anyway to save money on their gas bill).

The next day, the folks came and swapped out the electronic ignition to the tune of $180.  Not bad, all things considering!

So in the end, it cost me $180 to relight a pilot light that didn’t exist.  The tenants are happy, the pipes didn’t burst, and I saved a wad of cash by waiting till the next day.  Although I was prepared to spend what ever it took to fix the problem that night, I wasn’t going to wait till 3am to fix a furnace.  It kind of defeated the purpose.

I suppose I spoke too soon when I mentioned that I like the easy fixes…

Leave comments below. Subscribe to Comments