"The thermocouple is a safety feature that determines if the pilot light is lit. The heat of the pilot light flame creates millivolt current in the thermocouple which energizes a magnet that in turn allows the gas control valve to operate. If the pilot light goes out, the thermocouple will not allow the gas valve to operate."

A common symptom of a faulty thermocouple is the pilot light will not stay lit.

I had every intention of coming home today, working on sorting more fabric, and getting the rest of my list taken care of.

I cleaned out the litterboxes, at least. So I get to cross one thing off.

I also learned quite a bit, like what a thermocouple does, that they can go bad, and how to light the pilot light on my boiler. I also brushed my boiler's 'teeth' (with a toothbrush, even, and flossed with a piece of wire), I figured out why it wouldn't stay lit after we did all of this, and at the moment (knock on wood--there's plenty of it around, after all) everything is running smoothly.

Thank goodness for Cingular Nation, and the fact that I have cell phone service down the basement. Thank goodness to the nice guy from church (I'm not going to name him here) who came to my house after I couldn't get the pilot light to light, ended up staying for over an hour to replace the thermocoupler thingy, and didn't take a dime (although I did ask Mom to ask him if I owed him anything, or, at the least, if I could bake him something yummy as thanks.)

And yes, thanks to the furnace guy (Yes, the furnace guy who never came back to my house last winter) who said that he would give the guy from church a new thermocoupler if he brought mine to him to match it up.

Thank you Dad, as usual, for your advice, and for reassuring me that the boiler really wasn't going to blow up (I have this thing about gas) and that I was perfectly capable to clean it and brush it out and relight the pilot light (even though it wouldn't stay lit.) Since Dad's in Washington DC at the moment, it was a bit of a long conversation on the phone to do this. But it worked.

And thank you, Mabel, for dealing with the interruption of your supper not once, not twice, but three times, with good grace. (And I should probably thank the cats for not attempting to venture down the basement, too.)

Argh! But at least we have heat. It's supposed to get down to 34 tonight.

I'm tired. But I said I'd stay up until the boiler kicked off, so I'm going to do just that.

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