I have an Amana Air Command 80 furnace with electronic ignition. I have had mundane stuff go wrong with it over the years, mostly dirty flame sensor and jets, tranformer failure (damn chipmunks) but generally it has been a good appliance.

A few weeks ago my furnace started short cycling, presumably due to the failure of the heat anticipator in the old Honeywell round thermostat (mercury type). Replacing it with a Lux TX500E, sold under the Ace brand as an Ace ATX500E, fixed that nicely.

But during the time it was short cycling before I caught wind of what was happening it went through a lot of start-up cycles and I am wondering if that had any ill effect on the life expectancy of the ignitor, or other components for that matter. It probably did not go on for long, as I am pretty vigilant about stuff around the house, but it probably did do it for at least a day or so.

OK, my question is this... is there any way to know if your ignitor is "getting ready" to throw in the towel? My ignitor looks like the ignitor pictured here (hope it comes through)

http://www.arnoldservice.com/Amana%2041-401.jpg

When it lights up, you can see it gets glowing hot on one side of the "U" about halfway down before the other side starts to glow. Does this mean it has developed one of the infamous "hot spots" I have read about and is it about ready to burn out in this spot. Or is it normal for one to start getting hot on one side before the other side gets hot. The furnace is about 17 years old and I have never replaced the ignitor in the 14 years I have owned the house. Should I just put another one in there, they are only about $40 and available locally. Thanks in advance.

Since you seem familiar enough with the unit, I would recommend purchasing a replacement ignitor and keeping it on hand for the event when the current one fails. Inevitably failure will occur at a time when the local supplier is closed for the weekend. Average life expectancy depends on particular ignitor type, system usage, and environmental factors. Failure is somewhat unpredictable, so a spare would be a good investment.

When it comes to igniters,, you received good advice,, its good to have a spare around ,because they don`t go out through the week ,always on a cold Saturday night when you can`t get hold of anyone

Above advice is correct. No need to replace a part that is still working. Just keep one on hand, and change out when its needed. Kind of like a lightbulb. You don't change them until they burn out, and you can't tell how long they will last by looking at them.

OK, I bought a spare. That seemed like a reasonable tack to take since it does tend to get just a tad cold in these parts. I will see if the old one makes it through this heading season then replace it with the new one and keep the oldie as a spare. Thanks.

Just make sure when you replace it, DO NOT touch the element with your fingers, or anything for that matter. The oil from your fingers(be it little) will create a hot spot, thus burning out element. And in case you didn't already know, these things are very brittle, break easily, so take your time and you should be just fine. If you must replace with new and save old for emergencies, store old one in the package the new one came in, doesn't hurt to wright on the packaging " used, but good", this way, ten years from now you will know the plug is still good, instead of saying, now why did I keep this, is it good or bad?