It's too damn cold.

"Alfalfa" (alfalfa-romeo) 12/31/2014 at 08:35 • Filed to: None

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3° Fahrenheit on the way to work this morning. Heated seats and a turbo do make it more bearable, though.

Also, my furnace is not taking it very well. I'm not sure if it's just not good enough, or just programmed by a crack head, but it lets the temp drop to about 13 below the thermostat before it turns on, then proceeds to run constantly for the next hour until it gets to the set temperature. It then shuts off again until it's about mid to low 60's.

PilotMan > Alfalfa 12/31/2014 at 08:45

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I left my truck out last night, when I got in it this morning I was so thankful to have cloth seats. Leather seats are just too damn cold, even while being heated. When its this cold, sitting on heated leather seats is like sitting on a not quite done hot pocket.

Ryan A. > Alfalfa 12/31/2014 at 08:51

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Your thermostat tells your furnace whether it should be on or off. Is it a newer programmable one? If it is then it might be in an energy saving mode or something. Hopefully the instructions can help you get it to do what you want.

My thermostat is completely mechanical. It's controlled by a Mercury thermometer. It's nice because it's simple but doesn't have any ability to program a schedule. But I think I get superpowers if I drink the Mercury.

twochevrons > Alfalfa 12/31/2014 at 09:10

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I wish that I could say that my Volvo is coping as well as yours :( Mine has started taking an alarmingly long time to get oil pressure on cold mornings – there's several seconds of oil light, awful knocking, and horrible noises from the turbo at startup. If I didn't have to park on the street, I'd use the block heater, but as it is, I just try to avoid driving it, which sucks. I suspect that the oil pickup o-rings are shot and causing air to be sucked in when the oil is cold and thick. Dropping the sump to replace them isn't a big job, but I'd really rather not do it in subzero temperatures!

As far as the furnace thing goes, that sounds like a problem with your thermostat. I actually just had something similar happen with mine – every once and a while, it would fail to start the furnace, but other times, it would be fine. It's possible that it could be some weird programming option on the thermostat, but in my case, mine had been annoying me for a while, so I took great glee in throwing it out and replacing it.

Alfalfa > Ryan A. 12/31/2014 at 09:12

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It's an incredibly cheap programmable one. I figured that was it, but I have no clue how to fix it. I'm hoping our maintenance guy can find a manual or figure it out.

Alfalfa > twochevrons 12/31/2014 at 09:20

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Mine hesitated to start for a moment, but fired right up after that.

The thing about the thermostat is that it's incredibly cheap, and a struggle to even set it. We live in an apartment, so I don't have a manual and am not exactly at liberty to replace it. Depending on how cold it gets today, I may put in a maintenance request.

uofime > Alfalfa 12/31/2014 at 10:04

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Does it always act that way? If no, try changing the battery. I've seen thermostats act like that when they are nearly dead.

Alfalfa > uofime 12/31/2014 at 10:10

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Done that, actually. It's done it a little in the past, but not nearly this bad, as this is the coldest it's been since we moved into our unit in May.

uofime > Alfalfa 12/31/2014 at 10:32

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If your maintentence guy cannot fix it I'd say go get a cheap, analog, mercury thermostat and try that.

I know you said you live in an apt, but that shouldn't stop you from going nice reversible mods to the place (it has never stopped me)!

If that doesn't fix it, the only other thing I can think of is that something is wrong with the furnace, maybe you're overheating it. Maybe it's shutting down until it cools enough to safely restart. A lot of furnaces have a code light on them that will flash intermittently, morse code style, if they're having this sort of problem. Your maintenance person should know to check this, but I've had plenty who were clueless too.

Destructive Tester > Alfalfa 01/05/2015 at 09:29

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Stupid question, but did you try looking online for a manual? You can usually find PDF manuals of just about everything made if you look hard enough. When my 30+ year old furnace died during a particular cold-snap I was able to download the full repair manual and trick it into working for a week until the home warranty took care of a replacement.