Okay, I'll type this up here and then post it to my LJ..
The story.
As I sit here writing, our air conditioning is on, and drying things out a bit.
We had been without furnace or air conditioning since March.
Today I fixed it in a split second.
Let me sum up - no, plenty of time, let me explain.
In the nearly ten years since I fist bought this house, I have noticed a peculiarity of the wiring. Obviously, the plan for rewiring after a previous owner remodeled was implemented by demented weasels.
The furnace/AC remains on a single 15-amp fuse in the old fuse box, and oddly not to the brand new circuit breaker box installed before the furnace. Also on the same circuit, the weasels decided to put one outlet of two from the east wall of the kitchen, the light in the alcove over the sink, the lights in the mud porch, the outlets in the mud porch, and the Ground Fault Interrupt outlet outside of the mud porch on the same circuit. Oh, and the back door outside light.
One day two years ago I found this out when the GFI outlet went belly up and took down the fuse. I replaced both and things went fine.
Until early March, that is.
One fine march day I came up from puttering in the basement and the light above the sink was out. Huh, thought I, and replaced the bulb. No go. Then I checked the porch light, and etc, and could not get a response. No problem, it blew the fuse. I went downstairs and put in a new fuse and came back up again to find no power.
I checked the GFI, not tripping, but not resetting the circuit, either. To test it, I did what I did the previous time: I had Andi stand over me with a wooden pole while I carefully removed the wires from the GFI to open the circuit. No go. It was not the GFI.
I went to Wal-Mart to get a new fuse; they had none.
I came back and got out my dad’s trusty Voltmeter and tested the fuses we had, all tested fine. WTH?
Faced with no easy task in tracing down the circuit, we ended up putting a long extension cord to the freezer in the mud porch and leaving the rest for my days off.
Other things came and went, and I theorized at one point that the whole thing did not make sense. If there was a short, it would blow the fuse. And if it was an open circuit, the other devices on the circuit should still be working. Properly done, that’s one of the benefits of alternating current. Somehow all these devices are wired together in a loop and one is bad.
Madness.
We endured many cold days and a few hot ones. No household heat, nor AC for three months.
Today I decided it was getting too hot and sticky. It was time to do something. I could isolate the rest of the circuit from the furnace and we could turn on the AC for once in the sweltering heat.
I went down the trace the lines to the furnace, intending on pulling the fuse and implementing my plan.
As I looked at the furnace, I noticed one thing that has always stuck me as odd. Mounted on the furnace is an electrical box and a length of conduit going up to where the power cable comes through the ceiling joists. The box has a single light switch and a fuse. No problem, extra protection for the furnace, right? I unscrewed the fuse and looked at it. Fine: no problems.
Then I looked at the switch. It was off.
No. Nonononono. No one is that stupid about wiring a house. No way.
I flipped the switch.
I walked upstairs.
I complained to Andi about people who rewire a house and do not keep a map.
I turned on the light above the sink.
It came on.
I turned it off and called Andi, “Andi, could you come here and check the light in the porch?”
She came in and tried it, and then she tried the outside light. Both working.
Three months.
Because someone wired in a switch I must have inadvertently switched off while puttering around in the basement.
Well, at least I didn’t pay an electrician to find it out.