Tony Sivori wrote:

The Internet. Secret lover. Fixer of furnaces at all hours and on holidays
too. Is there anything it cannot do?

I remember my furnace crapping out and tracking it down to an inline
electrical thermal protection device in the motor that thoughtfully
protected itself by not opening, but by burning itself up on both ends.

Figuring I could just buy one of these the next day, as I even had the
part number, but the part wasn't sold separately. I called the part
manufacturer, found they had sold the division to another company,
called them, and gave a good story. They fabricated five of them and
sent them to me free. It took three weeks for them to make the samples,
but this is in California, and I wasn't freezing.

It's still going about 20 years later. It's now a rental unit, and I
thought about a new furnace, but it still seems to work fine.