My father always told me that when you are working around anything with fuel, you should never be smoking a cigarette, pipe, or cigar.
He said it was nothing but a recipe for disaster. I remembered this all my life, and whenever I was working on a car, I made sure to not let anyone smoke in the garage. I guess I thought that everyone who worked had this mentality. You didn’t smoke around anything that was flammable, and that included HVAC units. I never thought I would have an occasion to tell a professional HVAC technician this, but it happened. I was upstairs working while the HVAC technician was working on my furnace. I thought I heard an odd noise, but I didn’t give it a second thought. It wasn’t until I thought I detected the faint odor of smoke, that I began to panic. I ran to the door and went into the basement. The HVAC tech was stomping out some papers and he looked a bit wide-eyed. He apologized and said he had already called his HVAC company for assistance. He had been smoking and by some freak accident, the ashes got into the furnace, and the wiring caught fire. He promised that if the furnace wasn’t able to be fixed, the HVAC company would purchase a brand new furnace for me. I was wondering if I should call my homeowners insurance, just in case they reneged on this promise. They could fight the HVAC company for me. I figured I may as well wait for the owner of the HVAC company to show up, and talk to me about my furnace.