If you read my last title, you probably wondered how one flat tire related to everything being broken. Well the story continues. In addition to dealing with the flat tire, I arrived home to find Emily wrapped up in blanket at her desk. The heat was no longer working. Also the hot water was out. This made sense because they are produced by one compact system shown in the picture below.
I called the property management company and the owner was over within 30 minutes. He proceeded to tell Emily (I was on a conference call) how she doesn't know how to operate the thermostat. This was actually true, but was not the root of our problem as he was suggesting.
By the way, I am now an expert in operation of the Honeywell Chronotherm III thermostat - even in Dutch. I can't say enough good things about google translate.
The owner and Emily spent quite a bit of time trying to get the furnace working again. Eventually he called an expert who arrived about an hour later. The furnace guy quickly diagnosed that the internal exhaust fan had stopped spinning. He got it spinning again and things fired up. Of course it would only be a matter of time before it stopped spinning again. He didn't have a replacement part with him, but promised to return sometime between 8:00 and 5:00 today with the new part: "would we be available during that time period?" Some things apparently are the same in every country. So today was Emily's first day of work, but I only work 10 minutes away, so he agreed to call me a half hour before he arrived with the part so I could meet him.
Unfortunately we assumed that when the furnace was back on, the hot water would be as well. It wasn't. The apartment warmed up quickly, but we really didn't want to take cold showers. I totally expected if left as it was, the next day the furnace guy would show up, flip a switch and the water would be on. So why not figure this out myself. Unfortunately there is no useful online information about this furnace in any language. I asked Emily to show me what the owner had done when he attempted to get the water working again. Disastrously this resulted in turning off the furnace and stopping the rotation of the exhaust fan. My attempts to get the fan turning initially failed. However after letting things cool down for a couple hours I was able to get the furnace running again.
Recently becoming an expert in operation of the Honeywell Chronotherm III, I was able to set the temperature to a comfortable 22 degree C. Imagine my surprise waking up at 2:30 to a temperature of 28 C. I'll save you the trouble of converting; that's 82 F. Fortunately the furnace stopped working a short time later and we woke to a comfortable 22 C.
This was all very confusing because the chance of having three problems at once is very small (broken exhaust fan, broken water heater and broken thermostat.) It all came together when the furnace guy returned with the exhaust fan. It turns out the water heater is what probably failed first. The heater for the water is only activated when water is flowing through the hot water pipe. If the heater thinks water is flowing, but it isn't it heats the water in the furnace, which is why the apartment got so hot overnight. It is probably a contributor to the fan going out. Ironically, even though the water heater is going like crazy, you loss hot water.
So we have heat, but only cold water. The furnace guy said this furnace is beyond hope. I'm sure the owner isn't going to like hearing that. I expect we'll get a new furnace - hopefully soon.
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| Vaillance Cold Comfort Heater |
By the way, I am now an expert in operation of the Honeywell Chronotherm III thermostat - even in Dutch. I can't say enough good things about google translate.
The owner and Emily spent quite a bit of time trying to get the furnace working again. Eventually he called an expert who arrived about an hour later. The furnace guy quickly diagnosed that the internal exhaust fan had stopped spinning. He got it spinning again and things fired up. Of course it would only be a matter of time before it stopped spinning again. He didn't have a replacement part with him, but promised to return sometime between 8:00 and 5:00 today with the new part: "would we be available during that time period?" Some things apparently are the same in every country. So today was Emily's first day of work, but I only work 10 minutes away, so he agreed to call me a half hour before he arrived with the part so I could meet him.
Unfortunately we assumed that when the furnace was back on, the hot water would be as well. It wasn't. The apartment warmed up quickly, but we really didn't want to take cold showers. I totally expected if left as it was, the next day the furnace guy would show up, flip a switch and the water would be on. So why not figure this out myself. Unfortunately there is no useful online information about this furnace in any language. I asked Emily to show me what the owner had done when he attempted to get the water working again. Disastrously this resulted in turning off the furnace and stopping the rotation of the exhaust fan. My attempts to get the fan turning initially failed. However after letting things cool down for a couple hours I was able to get the furnace running again.
Recently becoming an expert in operation of the Honeywell Chronotherm III, I was able to set the temperature to a comfortable 22 degree C. Imagine my surprise waking up at 2:30 to a temperature of 28 C. I'll save you the trouble of converting; that's 82 F. Fortunately the furnace stopped working a short time later and we woke to a comfortable 22 C.
This was all very confusing because the chance of having three problems at once is very small (broken exhaust fan, broken water heater and broken thermostat.) It all came together when the furnace guy returned with the exhaust fan. It turns out the water heater is what probably failed first. The heater for the water is only activated when water is flowing through the hot water pipe. If the heater thinks water is flowing, but it isn't it heats the water in the furnace, which is why the apartment got so hot overnight. It is probably a contributor to the fan going out. Ironically, even though the water heater is going like crazy, you loss hot water.
So we have heat, but only cold water. The furnace guy said this furnace is beyond hope. I'm sure the owner isn't going to like hearing that. I expect we'll get a new furnace - hopefully soon.
