Despite our house being a fairly new house, we’ve had some issues with our furnace for the past few years. The problems have always been intermittent, but happen at the worst possible times. As in, the colder it is outside, the less likely it would be that the furnace would turn on.

During last year’s polar vortex, I nearly broke down and called in an HVAC specialist to fix our furnace when we woke up one morning to a 55 degree house. But that same morning the furnace then came on and warmed us back up to a comfortable 70 degrees, so I let it go. If I didn’t have to spend a fortune on a repair, I wasn’t going to. (Yes, I’m cheap.)

Part of the reason I refused to call someone in is that, unlike the furnace, our gas fireplace has worked reliably. So even on days when the furnace wouldn’t come on more than once a day, the gas fireplace could keep the living room tolerably warm on its own during the day. Honestly, during the winter our gas fireplace is on for the entire day most days. We’ve found that it actually saves us money to keep it on. If the fireplace could get us through the most temperamental days of the furnace, we’d be fine.

This year, though, the furnace had been ignoring the thermostat more than usual. I knew it wasn’t the thermostat causing the problem – we had that replaced just four years ago, and in those cases the furnace wasn’t even trying to activate. In this case, the furnace would give it a try, the burners would ignite, and then it would shut off a couple of seconds later. This would happen 3-4 times in a row, and then the furnace would give up and stop trying.

We have a problem here.

So I recently found myself in the position of needing to call someone for a repair, or figure it out on my own. Google to the rescue!

After some searching, the leading theory was that the flame sensor was dirty and needed cleaned or replaced. The flame sensor detects if the burners actually ignite. If the sensor can’t tell if the burners ignited, it’ll shut everything down instead of risking gas flowing freely without a controlled flame burning it.

That explained all of the symptoms, but how in the world could I clean the sensor? I read a few guides, but they just weren’t thorough enough for me to feel comfortable with what I was doing. So I turned to my next DIY helper: YouTube.

I can’t begin to say how thankful I am for the folks who post YouTube videos of how to fix stuff around the house. They saved us when we needed to replace a leaky part of our kitchen sink a few years ago, they helped us learn how to snake our our toilet when a certain little kid used too much toilet paper, and they have now helped me repair my furnace. After watching two videos about the process, I felt comfortable giving it a try. (With Aaron as my backup.)

So, if you’re ever wondering how to clean the flame sensor so your furnace will turn on and stay on, let me show you how to do it:

Step 1: Turn off the electricity to the furnace. Important step here when you’re inserting metal screwdrivers deep into your furnace.

Step 2: Remove the cover of your furnace and find the burners.

Step 3: Locate the flame sensor. It’s usually a thin metal rod sticking up in front of one of the burners.

Step 4: Figure out where the sensor is attached. It usually has a screw holding it in, requiring a screwdriver. Or, in our case, an itty-bitty socket wrench. Ours was attached above the burners, but yours might be attached underneath.

I circled ours – it attached from above the burners.

Step 5: Carefully remove the flame sensor after loosening the screw holding it. Don’t touch the metal part – the oils on your hands can damage it! See all that black and white stuff on the sensor? That soot is what was keeping it from sensing the flame properly.

It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s enough to keep the furnace from working.

Step 6: Gently clean the sensor. Videos and written guides recommended a very, very fine grain sandpaper, soft steel wool, paper, or anything that isn’t too rough. The best suggestion I saw was using a dollar bill – it’s just abrasive enough to clean the sensor without damaging it. I used a crisp bill to clean ours. You won’t be able to get all of the black scorch marks off of it, and that’s okay. You’re only concerned with getting any loose debris off of it.

It’s cleaner, even if it doesn’t look that different.

Step 7: Carefully put the flame sensor back in place and secure it with the screw. Basically, reverse everything you did to get it out.

Step 8: Flip the switch at the circuit breaker box to power on the furnace again. Leave the cover off (if your furnace allows it) so you can check if everything is working. If all goes well, the gas will begin to flow, the burners will ignite, and they’ll stay on this time. If it’s all working well, replace the cover, pat yourself on the back, and go enjoy a warm house.

A very happy sight.

If it doesn’t work, you might need to replace the sensor. I’m told this is a cheap part that you can find at any hardware store, and is nearly as easy to replace. In our case, cleaning it worked just fine.

Since cleaning it, we haven’t had any issues at all with the furnace. I’m still not very handy, but thanks to the internet I can do a great job at faking it some of the time!

It just occurred to me that August is nearly over, which means summer is nearly over. And I’m now baffled as to where the time went?

I’ve been told the years fly by faster as we get older, and I’m convinced that the only reason this is said is because we pile on more responsibilities every year so we’re too busy to even remember to place the X’s for each completed day on the calendar.

Time didn’t fly as a kid. When I was eight years old, summer lasted for what seemed like forever. But at eight years old, my only summer responsibilities were picking up any toys I brought out of the house and being back home before dark. Hardly a packed schedule.

Now I have so much to do that things always get neglected due to running out of time to get to them. It’s vital to mentally sort what needs to get done from what I’d like to get accomplished and make sure the needs are finished before moving on to any “what I’d like to do” items.

And sometimes? Even the needs have to be sorted into extremely important and not-so-important categories. Hopefully you know what I mean – those days when you have to say “Do I NEED to do laundry today, or can these jeans go one more day?”

For example, at the beginning of the summer, I was excited to get outside and make this the year our yard looked nicer. We trimmed the edges of the lawn, I planted flowers around the base of the tree (which are still mostly alive despite my negligence), and I dutifully weeded around the house and the patio. There were plans to do even more, too.

But it didn’t happen. Other needs got in the way. Aaron has continued to mow all of the lawn regularly, since that’s one of those extremely important issues the HOA would crack down on. (Also, we don’t want ticks.) The front yard has even had the edges trimmed a few times, too.

But the backyard? Total disaster. My first weeding experience was intense, and I used a weed spray to make sure they wouldn’t come back. Weeds, however, are the genetic supermutants of this century, proving the theory of evolution as they laughed at my weed spray and grew back faster and with more vitality.

So fast, in fact, that some are trying to overtake my youngest child.

Yeah, I’m just as surprised as you, Mira.

For reference, she’s four feet tall.

So yeah, the back yard is slightly overgrown. Or very overgrown, if you regularly keep a manicured lawn. In my defense, I had a lot of other stuff going on this summer, and didn’t notice that two months had gone by without weeding. And at this point I don’t know how much weeding I’ll get done going forward, other than the patio, cause we do use it more in the Fall. I may let the ultimate weed-killer – aka: Winter – take care of the rest of them and vow to start fresh in the Spring.

I have the best intentions with my to-do lists. But I overestimate what I can get done in a certain amount of time, then have to cut the list down to only the items that will cause problems if they’re not finished. Work gets done, food is purchased and prepared, bills are paid, the family and our clothing are kept clean, the house is kept sanitary (but cluttered), appointments are (mostly) kept, but everything else? It may or may not happen.

Someday I will be more organized, but that day is not today. The rest of this week is likely booked as well.

If anyone thinks they’re more organized and on top of their to-do list than me, please feel free to share your secrets to getting it all done in the comments. Cause my only solution at the moment would involve adding more hours to the day, and I’m not sure everyone else would be cool with slowing down the Earth’s rotation a little for that purpose, even if it did have the side effect of making us weigh less, too.