Stove - While our house has forced hot air via a propane furnace, Michelle really loves our two wood pellet stoves. They are our usual source of household heat during the day. I like the fact that wood pellets, while they do vary a bit in price, don't vary nearly as much as oil and propane have in New England. A few days ago our primary first floor stove started to act sporadically. In one case I couldn't get it to stop its feed auger so it wouldn't shut down. In another case it started to smell like it was overheating. Standing by the stove you could see that the distribution blower of the heat exchanger wasn't firing. Without the cooling effect of the heat exchanger, the combustion was just getting hotter and hotter. I did a cleaning of the stove but things were still spurious.
Repair - Today the company that installed our stoves sent a repairmen. I'm guessing that the stove got an electricity power spike because the main cause was that the control board was flaking out. Along the way we also had them change the ignitor (needed to start the fire in the morning) and the exhaust temperature sensor. While they did charge full price for the parts, they didn't charge us for labor. The total bill was about $300. I think they had mercy on us because we buy our wood from them and have them do spring service/cleanouts. Compared to anything similar that would be done for automotive repair, it was a bargain.
So Michelle is once again a happy homemaker. When she feels a chill, she can walk over to the stoves and get a boost from its toasty warmth. I'm just happy because I was starting to fear I'd come home and find my house burnt down. Besides, we literally have a ton of wood left to burn for the season.
I forgot to mention that Timothy was in his nerdvana when the repair man was here. Timothy, my engineer in the wings, loves learning how things work. Gadgets, appliances, games, expensive digital pianos, etc. So the fact that the repair man opens up the stove, pulls the whole thing out of the fireplace, exposes the control board, cleans the fans, replaces the sensor, etc.... Timothy was lovin' every minute of it! And the repair man was pretty accommodating.
Posted by: Scott at February 1, 2008 05:53 PM