One down, one to go...

Today I finished my CPR/First Aid class! I will get my certificates in the mail in a couple weeks. I took this course as a class to fulfill my physical education requirements for my associates degree. I have one final left to take. Then I only have roughly a year left. Mind you, I only take 2-3 classes per semester. It's hard enough to do that while working and having a family. But I'm doing this for me. I can take my time with getting the degree and enjoy the classes that I am in. I don't like having to cram a bunch of classes all at once and all I remember out of them is how much stress I was under. This way, I can actually focus on the subjects and really absorb what is being given to me.

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I decided that today was a good day to give my furnace a much needed maintenance. A little background is needed. I live in a townhouse. I rent and am not an owner. So, technically, I am not allowed to do maintenance on my heating/cooling equipment even though it is what I do for a living. But, the townhouse cooperative (will be called the cooperative for the duration of this article) doesn't do maintenance...they change your filter, or they will let you change your own filter if you can convince them that you are capable of doing such a task, *rolls eyes* but they do not do any type of maintenance on the system. I'm sorry, I don't agree with this and want my system to run as good as it can. So, here is my first look at the furnace.

This a photo-essay of my time with my furnace.

First, I had to remove the tape (what the...?!?!) and pull the panel off the back of the evaporator so I can inspect it. Now, normally you could do this from the front where the piping enters the box...but the company that installed this AC system wasn't so thoughtful...

This is what I found when I opened up the evaporator compartment. This junk isn't supposed to be there. There was a penny, a flooring nail, drywall, mortar (???), balled up paper and more 'stuff'. I also found scraps from the new tile floor in our bathroom. Looks like the contractor didn't think he needed to use the trash can that was right behind him outside the door...



And this is the 'stuff' from the evaporator compartment...





And then I decided to check out the heat exchanger. To my surprise, I found that the evaporator coil was being held in place by...NOTHING!!!!! There is supposed to be an 'L' bracket all the way around to hold the coil in place and to take the strain off the refrigeration piping. But, alas, there was none to be found...





I then put the panel back and replaced the screws and taped the seams just like it was before I dove into this project.







Now onto the blower compartment. Ack! what a sight to see. You have to wonder why there is sooooo much dirt when, as you can see, there IS a filter in place. You see, before I moved into this townhouse, the previous tenants used the filters that were provided by the cooperative...you know, the ones that are blue and you can read a newspaper right through the material. They will stop a marble or a hair, but don't do much for dust or dust mites...




So, I took pulled the motor and the squirrel cage wheel from the housing and washed the housing and wheel. After everything was dry, I reassemble the blower assembly and installed it in the blower compartment...after I vacuumed it out, of course! ;)

I checked out the burners and igniter system...all OK there!


After all of that, I threw the power back on and she took off as usual! :D














Oh, yeah. Let's not forget the new filter...