The (not-so) Fiery Furnace

We’ve been having trouble with our furnace.

For you folks out in sunny California, or down in balmy Florida, a furnace is a household appliance common here in Arkansas, the primary job of which is to waft great billows of toasty, heated air into our chilly living spaces, so that we don’t have to go to all the trouble of getting up and walking all the way to the closet and putting on a sweater.

That’s alot to ask of any American, especially when you consider that there is a good chance of misplacing the TV remote while you walk around the house.

So, I called a technician and he fiddled around with the thing for about twenty minutes, announced that he had found the problem and informed me that it would be very expensive to fix. I told him to hold off ordering any parts, because I wanted to be able to do some creative budgeting before I coughed up several hundred bucks.
That night, my wife (the one of us who isn’t absent minded) reminded me that we have household insurance that covers stuff like this.

OO-RAH!

I called the number on our copy of the contract, and in a few hours, another technician was knealing in our cramped furnace closet, only a few feet from the catbox. I thought to myself that anyone who spends that much time in basements and garages probably gets to see alot of catboxes.

The new technician is younger than the last. He sets to work, and the thought of telling him about yesterday’s technician crosses my mind. Should I tell him that "the other guy" thought it was a stuck relay?

He hums a little while he works. He is patient, unlike "the other guy", who seemed to be having a hard day, and grumbled whenever he dropped a screw, or misplaced his flashlight.

Do I just casually drop a remark like, "-think maybe it’s a stuck relay?"

The "new" guy is moving a little probe around to different wires that run around the furnace. A little red light in the probe blinks on and off as he touches here and there.

Do I mention the previous diagnosis, just to save him some trouble?

No, and here’s why. Two reasons:

1) I have no clue as to whether the "other guy" was correct in his diagnosis. Sure, I would have trusted him to fix the problem, because he knows more than I do, but I can’t say for sure that he got it right on his first go.

2) As I heard someone say recently, "Everyone likes to peel their own banana". This guy seems confident and capable. He probably likes to go about his job in a certain way, testing and deducing according to his own logical pattern. He might not appreciate people throwing out theories while he is trying to systematically form his own judgements. I could just see him giving me a sideways glance and saying, "Well maybe it’s a stuck relay and maybe it ain’t.". Here in thenSouth, such un-asked for advice could be taken as a lack of trust. It wouldn’t be polite.

This new tehnician is very patient, and works for a solid twenty-five minutes before saying anything.

"Hm-m-m-mm."

That’s it; "Hm-m-m-mm.".

A few minutes later he stands up and explains "Looks like there’s a bad relay in your control board.".
It’s going to be expensive, and will take a few days to get the part, he says. We make some innocuous conversation and chuckle a little over how complicated machines are these days. In the old days, I could have fixed my own furnace, but this one has an electronic brain. I always used to work on my own cars myself. He understands.

He leaves with a "take it easy", and I’m glad I didn’t mention the other technician.

It’s chilly at night this week. We can make it like an adventure. Pile blankets on the bed and wear sweaters. And now we have an excuse to use the fireplace!