A minor fix

Since the beginning of the heating season, there's been a minor annoyance that I just couldn't seem to fix. The damper on my furnace flue was getting stuck open. I would go down stairs and knock it loose, but every time I went down there, it was stuck open.

Now, hot air rises. So this stupid thing was sucking the warm(ish) air out of my basement every time this happened.

Dramatic recreation of it being stuck open.
You can't really tell, but my finger is holding it that way.

Last night I went down and stared at it. I got out my bottle of fancy German oil that Ian had given me and squirted some on the pivots. It swung better when it swung, but as I fiddled with it, the blasted thing would still get stuck open. But not all the time. Finally I noticed a little side-to-side play in the swinging plate, and from there I figured out that it was getting hung up on the very tippy-tip of a sheet metal screw that comes in from the side.

The offending screw is called out.

I backed off that screw, and the blasted thing doesn't get stuck any more!

Ta-da!