The home heater stopped working a week ago. With the help of some Youtube videos and ehow.com, I diagnosed (ok, guessed) that the problem should be the igniter. So I opened up the furnace, quite reluctant to mess with a potentially explosive appliance.
With trepidation, I went ahead to take plates and brackets apart, and got the igniter out. Now, I have never seen an igniter before, so telling if this one is functional or busted was a bit tricky. But I noticed what looked like a crack (red arrow in picture below), and if this thing worked basically by producing resistive heat from electricity, such a crack will do it.
So, I took it to OSH hoping to find a replacement. and luckily ran into a guy who services furnaces in his other job; he immediately recognized what i was holding in my hand and confirmed it was busted; he also said buying it online was my only hope. (He added, "if you called someone like me to fix this, it'll cast you several hundred dollars". That made my day!)
Back home and online, I couldn't find exact model number match - but with pictures found a visual match and ordered from an Amazon vendor. It had been almost a week since I took the thing apart, and now I had some trouble remembering which way the igniter gets attached to the frame - but figured it out in time, and put everything back, and viola! - it all works again.
I should admit, I had the garden hose by my side just in case ;)
With trepidation, I went ahead to take plates and brackets apart, and got the igniter out. Now, I have never seen an igniter before, so telling if this one is functional or busted was a bit tricky. But I noticed what looked like a crack (red arrow in picture below), and if this thing worked basically by producing resistive heat from electricity, such a crack will do it.
So, I took it to OSH hoping to find a replacement. and luckily ran into a guy who services furnaces in his other job; he immediately recognized what i was holding in my hand and confirmed it was busted; he also said buying it online was my only hope. (He added, "if you called someone like me to fix this, it'll cast you several hundred dollars". That made my day!)
Back home and online, I couldn't find exact model number match - but with pictures found a visual match and ordered from an Amazon vendor. It had been almost a week since I took the thing apart, and now I had some trouble remembering which way the igniter gets attached to the frame - but figured it out in time, and put everything back, and viola! - it all works again.
I should admit, I had the garden hose by my side just in case ;)
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