Catastrophic Capacitor Failure

A couple of months ago I turned on my heat for the first time this winter.  I was downstairs and the rest of my family was asleep upstairs.  Within a half an hour I could smell something, but I dismissed it as having something to do with it being the first time the heater had been run in about 9 months.  Within an hour, however, I was no longer able to overlook it, as the downstairs filled with smoke. 

Next, I turned off the heater (and by now the smoke alarm) and woke up my wife, as I didn't want to be the only one having all the fun.  She searched around the interior of the house while I went outside and looked around the perimeter and underneath the house, there was nothing burning.  We then opened up the house the in order to dissipate all the smoke.  Now it was reading around 55 degrees on the ground floor of my house and my wife was back upstairs in bed and far warmer than me.  I, on the other hand, would stay up for the next 3 hours (until 3:30am) to ensure that all the smoke was out and that there was nothing creating any more of it. 

When the repairman came in the next couple of days, he discovered that it had been a catastrophic capacitor failure with the motor-start capacitor.  That had been the cause of both the smell and the smoke.  The picture you can see if you go to the Hubpage I wrote about "Catastrophic Failure of a Capacitor" is the actual capacitor that "blew apart".  This event was my inspiration to write this Hubpage.  By the way, the kids slept through the whole thing, oh to be young again.