Learned two things

I learned two things today.

First of all: a new word to me. This is rare enough that I have to make note of it. Last night, I re-started reading (well, where I left off: essentially with the assassination of the Archduke) that big book on WWI I was reading.

The author referred to the archduke and his "morganatic" wife. I assumed, from context, this was some kind of physical descriptor (in the photos, she looks like a fairly typical, slightly-zaftig-by-our-standards Edwardian-era woman). Turns out that's not it.

"Morganatic" describes their marriage. In short, it was something aristocratic or wealthy families could do to effectively say "This is how much we disapprove of your choice of a life-partner" - usually it was applied in cases of an aristocratic man marrying "beneath" him. The woman could not inherit, and in some cases, the children of the couple could not inherit. (In the case of world rulers: a child could not succeed his father on the throne or use any of the titles he held). Sort of a way of both disapproving and saying "forget you" by the family. Sort of like a prenup on steroids.

And I learned something much more practical. I was cold when I got home (and it's supposed to get into the 40s here tonight) and it was down in the 60s in my house when I got home, so I decided to turn the heat on for a bit. With the snazzy new programmable thermostat, that meant first redoing all the programming (to reflect the lower temperatures I want the house to be at when running the heat as compared to the air conditioning) and then telling it to switch over to heat.

Well, the fan system dutifully came on, but I thought, "I didn't really hear the furnace kick on." But then I thought that it being "high efficiency," maybe I wouldn't. So I waited a bit, and then felt next to one of the vents, and realized that the air blowing out of it was at best, lukewarm. But then again, I thought, "maybe that's the way with high efficiency furnaces, and I just have to wait."

(Funny how so many of us have been programmed to think "efficient" and "environmentally friendly" means "less comfort less quickly")

Then the temperature on the thermostat actually DROPPED a degree, and I knew that couldn't be right. So I sighed, called the furnace people in the vain hope someone would still be there (no, they weren't). Left a message asking for a call at my work number in the morning and dug out a pair of thermals to wear to bed tonight.

Then I thought, when all else fails, read the instructions again. So I went and looked at the big sticker plastered on the front of the furnace (which is, effectively, all the instructions). They referred to a gas on/off switch so I decided to take the panel off and look.

(This was using a flashlight, as I shut down all the power to that system, which also shut down the power to the light in that room).

Yup. The switch was turned to "off." I don't know if the installer forgot to switch it over, or if he told me about it and I forgot that he did (I was pretty much engrossed in the idea that my house would soon be below 82 degrees inside, so I wasn't really listening).

I turned it to "on," powered everything back up, reset the thermostat (it's hard-wired, so turning the power off means all the "saved" information is lost), and tried it again.

This time, the furnace came on. And warm air started coming out of the vent. So that's good.

I'll just have to remember that switch; it probably makes sense to shut it off at the end of the heating season in the spring, just as a safety feature.

And yeah, I called back and left another message saying I had figured it out. Saves me the cost of a service call.