Life At The Bates Motel

So the guys at work and most of my friends call this the Bates Motel out of the movie Psycho Those of you reading that don't know I live on the top floor of this place I basically have my own apartment. And my mother and father have the bottom two floors.

Well with the north eastern winter coming it is critical that the heating systems in this old house be working in top shape. So we have a service contract with a local HVAC company and they come out twice a year to do "PM" Preventive Maintenance and catch any issues before they happen. Well that's the idea anyway.

So now the story. The service company came to do the "PM" work (note everything was working fine before they got there) There are two furnaces that need to be checked one for the first floor and one for the second and third floors they use natural gas. Anyway I got home last night and went up to my apartment and it was COLD! the fan was running on the furnace and no heat was coming out.

Long story short Dad and I went into the furnace room there was no flame. I turned the unit off & pulled the cover off the furnace and started looking around......... And found that the"igniter" was unplugged. ??? I plugged that back in and turned the unit back on and the igniter lit up and went back out and still nothing no flame...... So flip the switch back off and look around a bit more....... Dad saw that the gas valve in the unit was turned off!?!? So we turned that back on and turned the unit back on and bingo we had flame and heat!

Between myself (when I had my own place) & my mother and father we have been using this company for TEN years. I hope this was an honest mistake on the part of the service tech. As tough as times are it makes you think sometimes. What if we did not have the knowledge to look at the furnace our self. Would they have charged for another service call? Just something to think about.