I just KNEW this was going to happen one of these days. :eek:

I'm a single female homeowner, it's Saturday night, and my male friend who helps me with home maintenance is out on the road.

My furnace clicks on, I hear the pilot come on, but before the burners catch the pilot switches OFF again. The fan will run for about a minute without heat, then the cycle will start again.

The HVAC service who installed the system in '95 is no longer in business. It's 23 degrees outside and I'm thinking I should get a motel for the night and call around tomorrow to see if someone will come out. Or, is there something I can do to handle this myself? I'd hate to get a guy out here and find out it's a minor thing that anyone could fix.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me!

Call a professional and get it fixed correctly.

Sounds like the thermocouple or what ever signals that the pilot light is on is bad. To understand it better, read though the sticky at the top of the forum. If it is just a regular thermocouple, the big box stores that are open Sundays have them.

I know this is probably too late to help you but I need to know what kind of pilot do you have . Is it one that lights from a sparker or one that lights from a glowing bright light?

Also If you can see your furnace does it have a hole in one of the doors? And if it does, do you see a red light through the hole in the door, sometimes it is hard to see, if you do see the red light is it blinking? If it is blinking how many times does it blink? Are there short blinks and then long blinks? If so see if you can figure out what the code might be, something like one short and three long. That would be either 13 or 31 and you may have a booklet that tells you what those codes mean. Let me know if you still need help