Tuesday morning I woke to find the house cold. I wandered up to the living room to check the thermostat and read 57 °F, well enough below the set point for the heat to have come on. It shouldn’t have gotten that cold. I could hear the circulation pump running, but when I put my hands on the radiators, they were cool, not warm or hot. I wandered downstairs, grabbing the long lighter as I went. We’d lost power the night before, and since it’s hot water heat with its own tank, the pilot can go out and yet continue circulating hot water - for a while, anyway.
I opened the boiler panel, then the pilot/burner door and propped the little door open with its hook. Moving the ignitor lever over to the ‘pilot’ set point, I re-lit the pilot and watched that it stayed lit. Satisfied, I then moved the ignitor lever over to ‘furnace’, wanting to make sure that the pilot stayed lit once there, too. A half second later, I hear the jets on the burner, a one foot by one foot plate, just inches beyond the pilot light, open. Just as I think “Oh, shit, the burner’s gonna -” a small fireball erupts from the door as the burner ignites. I hold perfectly still - something I learned in my first fireball incident: Never pull away from an imminent fireball - it just comes with you. More on that lesson another time.
Anyway, a half second more and the fireball is gone, and I think calmly “I was supposed to turn the heat down at the thermostat before I did this... I knew that.”
I appear to have singed a few of the hairs on my right thumb, but absolutely no other sign of fire damage on me.
Some of you may argue otherwise. That’s what the comments section is for.
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I'm not sure if I will see you on either of my next 2 trips to your town but I'm picturing you with the old sitcom explosion aftermath, blacken face, wide eyes, singed hair pointing off in every direction (don't forget to "cough" black dust if you get a chance). It's nice to know someone as sharp as you can have a "senior" moment like the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteWhew. You scare me, lady. And did your thumb stink after that? Burnt hair smells nasty (says the girl who burnt all the hair off her hand trying to light a backpacking stove while in Zion).
ReplyDeleteWhat was the most fun was that it just made one small fireball sort of in my lap, in front of my hands. It sort of reached out toward me, stopped just shy, and then went back. Other then the few hairs singing/burning, no damage at all. No heat, even. It all just stopped in front of me.
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