I just bought a new garage door and garage door opener. Right now I’m thinking of all of the things I could have bought instead. Last week I got new chimney caps. They are fine looking caps that keep the rain from coming straight into the house, but I could have bought a bunch of frivolous, unnecessary electronic gadgets for what they cost. Before the chimney caps, I had a fine time rewiring an outdoor electrical circuit that was not wired to code and shorting out on rainy days. Someone decided to bury armor clad cable along the side of the house to power an outdoor floodlight and receptacle. The cable run went along one side of the house passing right beneath a gutter downspout. The short was right beneath the downspout. I pulled up the cable to find it thoroughly corroded. Armor clad cable does not belong outside. It definitely shouldn’t be buried. I pulled up the entire cable run and replaced it with underground feeder cable running through nonmetallic liquaflex conduit. I replaced the receptacle with a weatherproof, deep, single-gang box sporting a weatherproof while-in-use cover and a GFCI outlet. That should bring things up to snuff.
With all of that done, I thought I had earned a reprive from the angry house gods. No such luck. Tonight we noticed that the furnace isn’t blowing hot air. I went up into the attic to inspect. Most furnaces have a little peephole you can peer through to check on the state of a little red LED that tells you if the furnace is sick. If the LED is constantly illuminated, all is well. If it is blinking, you’ve got trouble. My little red LED was repeating a three blink code. Consultation of the service entrance cover (which must be taken off and flipped over to read the blink code chart) revealed that three blinks means “VENT PRESSURE SWITCH FAILURE TO CLOSE”. Evidently, this indicates a vent blockage. I checked all of the vents for blockage and failed to find any obstructions. The AC has no problem spitting cold air through the same vents, but the furnace objects and furiously blinks its little red light. This probably means I need a new vent pressure switch. Oh well.
