The Flickering Light Bulb In Your Furnace

Every winter, at least one of the properties I manage experiences issues with the heat. Usually the first sign of trouble is when it fails to turn on in that shoulder season in October. You know, when it dips into the 50s and below at night. Tenants call me to say their radiators are cold, and I call the plumber. Then suddenly, the heat comes on! I cancel the plumber. All is well... until we get a 10 degree temperature drop.  Inexplicably, the heat goes out again. Sometimes it kicks on again before I can get the plumber over there, so we leave it again. But the writing is on the wall: I know that it's only a matter of time before the problem is back, and usually in a matter of days.

Signal Relay - this little guy might be to blame if your boiler
doesn't come on when it should, but then comes on by itself later on.

This week I finally put a name to the most likely culprit: signal relay. A signal relay is a switch that turns on the circulating pump (which draws hot water up through the radiator and back to the furnace to be re-heated). They are electrical circuits, and they fail. It's hard to say how often they fail - and there might be more than one if the furnace has zoned heat.  But, if your heat fails to go on when it should (and may or may not come on later without a plumber's help), or goes off at an inappropriate time (either to come back on or not), you can put money on a signal relay failing or having failed.

If you're wondering why shouldn't we have the plumber in even when the heat starts working by itself, the answer unfortunately is because you can't tell a signal relay is broken unless it's actually not working. Think of a light bulb in a chandelier. Sometimes, the filament in one bulb disconnects from one of the two contact wires and the bulb goes out. You think to yourself "I need to replace the light bulb", but before you can, the filament reattaches and the bulb starts working again.  Now, you can't remember which bulb it was (unless you're really good like that), and you don't want to change out the good light bulbs because that would be a waste... so you have to wait until it goes out again before you can identify it.

Same thing with a boiler. If the signal relay is causing the problem but it's still working intermittently, then the heat is on while it's working, and if tested the relay will not seem broken. So, unfortunately usually the heat has to be off for the plumber to find the problem.

The good news is it's usually an easy fix if your plumber has a compatible part with him. Make sure you can tell him the make and model of your furnace when you call. Otherwise he may not have a compatible part and may have to come back the next day - meaning more hourly charges and possibly a very cold overnight.

Do Your Neighbors a Snowy Solid

We in NYC had our first real snow storm of the season - about 8 inches with about 12 inches in some places. Right away I remembered the really annoying part of snow in NYC. It's not the roads and it's not the unshoveled sidewalks - that's actually the second most annoying thing about NYC snow storms.

No, the most annoying thing starts 1-3 days later, when the snow inevitably starts melting, and icy slush puddles accumulate at nearly every sidewalk corner where you have to cross the street. Suddenly, what is usually second nature to me becomes a major hassle. Does that look like virgin snow or is it more like an icy marsh, waiting to suck me down and flow into my boots, guaranteeing me an uncomfortable rest of the day (which may be quite young when the incident occurs).
The worst part of this is at night when the temperature is far below freezing (for instance, last night it was around 18 degrees after a day around 33 degrees), and those two-foot-wide puddles become two-foot-wide ice rinks, often uneven ice rinks because the slushy icebergs have become the peaks and valleys of your own Antarctic ice shelf. Talk about dangerous.

If you want the pedestrians that pass your house or store to throw grateful smiles instead of cursing your fortunes, please consider doing the following:

1) If your property is on the corner, instead of just clearing the sidewalk, also clear a pathway from the curb into the street. Yes, I know this isn't your responsibility, it's the City's, but can't we all get along?

2) If there is a rain gutter in front of your property, please try to clear a little channel from the gutter to the corner.  Just a small channel of 3 inches will help the melting snow clear out a little faster and will keep icy pools from forming so widely at the corners.

Please consider doing your NYC neighbors these snowy solids and we will thank you, in our hearts, if not as we pass by and see you doing your bit to help us all out.  Be safe everyone!