When the Wind Blinks the Power, Check the Furnace and the Sump

Last week in Battle Creek swung hard. Monday ran near 60 and Tuesday hit about 74, then a front came through. Wednesday brought steady rain, roughly a third of an inch, and by Friday afternoons topped out in the mid-to-upper 40s, with lows near 35 on Saturday and Sunday mornings. No snow and no freeze yet, but the wind never really quit: gusts reached about 30 mph on Tuesday, Wednesday and again on Sunday. That is the kind of wind that drops limbs on lines and makes the lights blink, and a blink is all it takes to cause trouble in a house that just started running its heat for the season.

Two things in the basement need power to protect the house, and neither one tells you when it stops. A modern gas Furnace runs on electricity: the thermostat, the igniter, the inducer fan and the control board. When the power drops and comes back, most furnaces restart on their own, but some lock themselves out after a failed start, and a weak igniter or a tired control board is often what fails on that restart. You find out at 3 AM when the house is down to 58 degrees. The sump pump is the other one. It plugs into an outlet that is often a GFCI, and a surge or a damp basement can trip that outlet without anyone noticing. A pump with no power after a rain like Wednesday's is just a float sitting in rising water.

Do this today. After any flicker, make sure the thermostat screen is on and set to heat, and that the Furnace starts and blows warm air within a few minutes. Find the Furnace power switch, which looks like a light switch on or near the unit, and make sure nobody bumped it off. If the Furnace will not start, a status light is blinking a code, or it starts and shuts off again, call A.W. Crooks. The No Heat special is live: $50 off your heating repair. At the sump, lift the lid, make sure the pump is plugged in and the outlet is not tripped, then pour a bucket of water into the pit. The float should rise and the pump should start and empty it. If it does not, call A.W. Crooks. We are 24/7 residential plumbing and HVAC in Battle Creek and the surrounding areas, and regular rates apply 8 AM to 5 PM, 7 days a week.

If losing power is what worries you, a whole home generator keeps the Furnace and the sump pump running through an outage. A.W. Crooks installs and services whole home generators, and every generator A.W. Crooks installs gets a free inspection every year through Install Care. A.W. Crooks handles Furnace Tune-Ups and Boiler Tune-Ups when you want a system check before the hard cold sets in. Veterans: on Wednesday, November 11, stop by the A.W. Crooks office between 8 AM and 5 PM for a free 1-Year Ultimate Home Protection Plan, in person that day only. Book at tctcinc.com/specials.

Running a commercial building or a new-construction job with plumbing that needs to be protected before the cold sets in? That is The Plumbing Company, commercial and new-construction plumbing only, not 24/7.

An outlet that trips again right after you reset it, lights that flicker when the weather is calm, or a breaker that will not hold is The Michigan Electric Company: residential and light commercial electrical, panels and generator electrical connections. One call to (269) 962-5441, or an email to tctc@mitctc.com, reaches all three.