cold and dirty
the flame keeps going out on our heater, which is propane. It’s been a couple years since we had it cleaned so I started calling around for a service person …. and couldn’t find one.
I called the local service, Acme, but they only service their own propane customers and were booked for “the next couple months”. So, I called our propane provider who referred me to Floyd who returned my call promptly but was also booked for 2 months and so was referred to a cell phone holder named Tom who was booked up for a month and a half.
Yeah, cleaning propane heaters must be booming business now that all us household procrastinators have been forced out of procrastination by the cold.
It really couldn’t be that difficult to clean the stove so I gave up on calling every potential propane heater service provider and their cousin and their cousin’s cousin by 3rd marriage. These are the inconveniences that spawn a diy’er.
So, I went to my trusty Google and searched for “how to clean propane heater”. Unfortunately, the only thing Google had to say on the subject for the first 5 pages of search results was “COMPARE AND BUY PROPANE HEATER!!!” I tried a few other search phrases with similar results. I’m not so sure that Google is winning the web spam battle.
So I turned to tried and true HowStuffWorks.com … but nope, just an article about how you might want to consider a propane heater for your shop. The diy network … nope just ads about buying a heater. and so forth. Apparently nobody in the google-searchable web is foolish enough to post instructions on how to clean your heater yourself.
So, I’ll rely on memory I guess. I seem to recall a handful of pipe cleaners and some windex when the heater was last serviced. My strongest memory however was the thought “Hey that looks easier than cleaning my bathroom! why am I paying this guy over $100 to wipe my heater with windex?”.
Add comment November 23rd, 2006