Alaska Dispatches
# 17  —  18 April 2001

Heater Repair

The heater died on us last week. Leisy was in Seattle for a conference; fortunately for Jules and me the days of 50 below were behind us. But it is still plenty cold outside and our house is rather drafty, so when the heater stops it gets pretty nippy pretty fast.
Our house is heated by a large indoor furnace that burns stove oil to heat air that is then blown out of a vent in the bottom of the unit. The unit starts up with a jarring thunk. This is followed by an electric buzz from the machine’s transformer, soon combined with the loud hiss of oil being continually ignited. After a minute the even louder rumble of the air blower kicks in for the duration of the heating cycle, which lasts about five minutes. We have all gotten used to the periodic disruption that signals impending warmth.
I have learned to gauge the outside temperature by the frequency of our heater roaring to life. I can also pretty much judge when the unit should be kicking in based on the temperature inside. Often as the house grows colder and colder, I get the sinking feeling that the heater should be coming on but is not. Lying in bed, sensing the mercury dropping, I start to run through possible scenarios. Have we run out of stove oil? Is there water in the filter or copper line running from the oil storage tank outside to the furnace? Has the power gone out? Is the heater’s nozzle plugged with dirt? Most of the time before I have made it through all of the possibilities the unit bellows to life. However sometimes it doesn’t.
Adjusting the thermostat confirmed my suspicion that the heater was indeed dead. At first, I could restart it by simply opening the door on the furnace and pressing a reset button on the controller. This was no fun at 5 in the morning, but at least it was easy.
When I let Peter know what was going on he immediately blamed me for getting water in the tank. Eventually he revealed that all outdoor storage tanks collect condensation, and that when the weather warms up the frozen condensation thaws, so that all tanks collect some water.
The next morning the reset button no longer started the heater. I bundled up Jules and myself and waited until a reasonable hour to call Peter. He showed me how to bleed the fuel line, which worked for a day or so. The following morning, again at around 5:00 AM, bleeding stopped solving our problem. I waited to again call Peter. He said he would come by to take a look.
When Peter hadn’t showed up by early afternoon, I rang him again. He had gone out with Search and Rescue and had told his son Jeff to come take a look at the furnace. Jeff had meant to come over, but had forgotten and fallen asleep.
Jeff noticed some ice in a filter off of the copper tubing bringing the oil from the day tank into the house and the furnace. He dismantled and cleaned the filter. Inside, he opened up the furnace and took some stuff apart, eventually cleaning the nozzle. As he worked, he explained that he had taken a class in heater maintenance, and that he had done this hundreds of times. However, as he reassembled the pieces, he forgot just how far from the nozzle head the electrodes were supposed to be spaced. So he took a guess.
The heater worked for a day but crapped out again the next night. I called Peter. He came over and took apart the nozzle, fiddled with the same parts Jeff had fiddled with, and got the heater running again. It ran for an hour or so.
I had mentioned to both Sidney and Greg that we were having heater problems. During the day they both stopped by, contributing tools and opinions. Sidney bragged about how many heaters he had fixed as he took ours apart. But it was soon time for his steam, so he disappeared, leaving Greg to put the heater back together. We spent another evening without heat.
Peter became convinced that there was water in the line, and that the fuel pump would have to be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned, or perhaps replaced. He promised that he would send someone around to look at it. The next afternoon Junior showed up.
Junior is a large guy, single, in his mid-forties. He is nice enough and a member of my regular steam group, but an odd bird. Oftentimes we’ll be sitting in the porch of the steam house, where conversation is almost exclusively in Yup’ik. Junior will suddenly turn to me and say something like: “Solar blasts very strong this year,” and proceed to explain in halting English how, from what I can gather, the end of the world is nigh and will be caused by savage winds originating from the sun.
Junior is a devotee of a late night radio program called Coast-to-Coast AM. Once is a while he brings his radio to the steam house, so I have gotten the chance to listen in. From the little I have heard the show seems designed to inspire right-wing conspiracy theorists. They invite guests to talk about things like Bigfoot, impending nuclear holocaust and large asteroids heading towards earth. I think that the nature of the show, which presents itself as hard science, combined with Junior’s zeal for the bizarre and limited English comprehension makes for some unique perspectives.
In any event, Junior is soft-spoken and reserved, especially around Kassaqs. Peter had removed most of the guts of the furnace, which were splayed out on cardboard on our living room floor. He was preparing the long and laborious task of disassembling the fuel pump. Junior listened as Peter explained what had been going on. Junior eventually gesticulated quietly and explained something to Peter in Yup’ik.
Junior then translated for me. He related that he had passed by a few days ago – around when our problems started – and noticed that the storage tank outside was leaking oil. This must have been the day after I filled the tank. The tank is a 55-gallon drum turned on its side. Since the hole is a few inches below the top of the drum, I pump oil into it until I see some oil trickling from the hole. Junior assumed that the cap was leaking and instructed Jeff to put a washer on the cap. He wondered if Jeff had screwed the cap on too tight.
Screwed the cap on too tight? Here we were, 6 men and dozens of man-hours later, me having to bug our landlord daily, and having to get up at least twice every evening, and being cold, and worried about Jules being cold, and bleeding quarts of stove oil, and various persons taking apart the nozzle three times, and readjusting everything adjustable, and practically taking apart the fuel pump, and all this because Jeff had screwed the cap on too tight?
If the cap were on too tight, Junior reasoned, pressure would build up in the drum, making it impossible for the small pump to pull fuel through the copper tubing and into the furnace. This seemed to be consistent with our symptoms. I walked outside, laughing to myself, and indeed, unscrewing the cap was a bit of a struggle. It finally came loose with an audible pop.
Five days without flowing fuel had caused dirt to build up in the nozzle. I picked up a replacement at the corp store for $4, and Charlie, who they call the heater doctor, came over and made some adjustments. Later in the day I noticed a high-pitched hum. Charlie, who is deaf, came back and after some work I was able to communicate the problem. It turns out he had reversed the polarity on the transformer. Fortunately he fixed it before we set the house on fire.
Village life is an amazing thing. No one is too worried about the details. Everyone is handy and a do-it-yourselfer, although most aren’t as handy as they think they are or claim to be. Eventually, however, you get to the guy who can fix the problem, and he does. As for us, all’s well that ends well, and warm.

©2001, Michael Thornton Wyman