umaf44•3mo ago

Rant: our furnace gave out during that -30 cold snap last January

Woke up at 3am to the house sitting at 12 degrees and the furnace making a loud clanking noise. Called an emergency HVAC guy who showed up 4 hours later and said the inducer motor was completely seized. Ended up costing $1,800 for the repair because it was a after-hours call plus the part was special order. Has anyone else dealt with sudden furnace failures during Edmonton winters and what did you do to prevent it from happening again?

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harperwright3mo ago

Getting a space heater from Canadian Tire saved my butt while I waited for parts. I grabbed two of those cheap oil filled radiator ones and just camped out in the living room for a couple days. Also started doing a yearly furnace tune up in October after that happened to me, costs like $150 but way better than $1800 in an emergency.

4

abbyc333mo ago

Think about it though - you spent $150 a year for how many years on tune-ups that didn't actually prevent the failure? My neighbor did that religiously and still had his heat exchanger crack at -35. The emergency HVAC guy told me those tune-ups mostly just check basic stuff and don't touch the inducer motor unless it's already noisy. I actually saved money by skipping the yearly checkups and just put that cash into a good space heater setup. Now I keep a $60 ceramic heater in the basement and a bundle of pipe insulation tape ready to go. The real trick is knowing where your shutoff valve is and having phone numbers for at least three different HVAC companies saved in your phone so you can price shop even when panicking at 3am.

1