Look what I bought myself for Christmas!!!

An ignitor module for my gas furnace - $504.

Yeah, my heat unit started acting up last Saturday, then Tuesday, then this morning. The previous days, I went outside and cut power to the unit to reset it. That's what got everything going the first time the service guy came out last month. I left the unit in a failed state this morning so the tech could troubleshoot it as is. Luckily, the system didn't "hang" until I was about to walk out the door to work so I was warm the whole time.

Tech got there and removed the panel. The IC board inside has an LED on it that blinks to indicate what the problems is, kinda like a BIOS beep thing on a PC. Sure enough, it was blinking the most expensive message... replace me.

Mike, the Tech, went back to the shop to get the part for me. When he got back, he installed it without incident and gave me the old part so I could put a bow on it and put it under my Christmas tree to me, from me. :-)

In looking at the failed IC board, looks like there were a pair of resistors that failed as there were burn/overheat marks around them. I'll probably replace them and have a spare if this ever happens again. I wish the repair folks would work on these things at the component level. It would save folks some money in some cases.