Home Sweet Home

[C5Engineer 1170]

Hey guys just a quick update to let you know that I made it home from my 203 day sand box tour. Great to be back and hold my 4 year old!! Now to get the furnace working. Anyone here have HVAC experience? I've had 4 different people look at and replaced 4 different non returnable expensive parts and still have the same issue the wife started with a week ago. 

[Av8r3400 1178]

What's it doing? Be specific.

(Welcome home, btw!)

[horsepower 24]

Welcome home Joey,Whats your heater doing or not doing........Randy

[akflyer 1427]

I have a TON of HVAC experience.. Helping Verify Alcohol Consumption.  we can help ya tear some shit up so post up those symptoms mr!

 

[EDMO 1078]

My furnace died about a week ago - wouldn't stay on for a full cycle - pilot would go out each time - relit it about 3 or 4 times - Always happens on Saturday night or Sunday morning - Was going to replace thermocouple - guess it got the message - it started working Sunday night and hasn't stopped since. ?

EDMO

[C5Engineer 1170]

Oh boy are you guys ready for this? 

 

About a week before I got home the wife came home and the house was freezing. The thermostat was on but no heat. She checked on the furnace and tried a restart procedure and it was making all kinds of funky noises from the gas valve and she could smell gas so she turned it all off and called the gas company. They came out and told her the gas valve was bad and to replace it. Hey they are trained professionals and it was freezing out seemed like an easy fix so the wife dropped $200 on a new valve and her Dad and a family friend with HVAC experience replaced it. Same issue with the new valve. 

 

The guy with some HVAC experience said well it's gotta be the main circuit board then. So she goes and buys that part and her Dad and her replace that which is a huge PIA btw. Same exact syptoms. By now it's been 3 days of that really cold weather the whole West Coast was getting. Next up they said well then it must be the thermostat is not working right. So she goes and buys a fancy new digital wall thermostat. No change with that either. 

 

Fast forward to me getting home. Were now into this project for about $500 and still don't have heat. First thing I called out someone from a large name brand HVAC company. The guy spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out why the pilot wouldn't light before he realized that the induction fan wasn't even starting. I had read the sequence of events in the book but misunderstood how it worked I guess because I didn't catch it either and I have zero experience with furnaces till now. Anyone else with any HVAC experience should of noticed this right away to start with. That fan not starting perfectly described the rest of the symptoms. He tested the board that controls the fan motor and said there was power in and no power out. He went to his van to see if he had one and meanwhile I jumped online and googled the part number real quick. I could get it for around $150. He came back in the house with one in hand and said want me to install it? I said how much and he goes back to his truck and hands me a job quote for $478!!!! I said no thanks and sent him packing. I bought the part locally and installed it in 10 minutes. 

 

The fan started and everything lit off like it's supposed to but the main burners would only stay lit for 30 seconds or so and were coming off and on erratically. Got back onto the HVAC forums (doityourself.com rocks btw) and they said it was a dirty flame sensor. On the Payne model 376 that I have the pilot assembly is all one unit and contains the ignitor, pilot assembly, and flame sensor/safety switch which is a separate thermo couple on a lot of other brands. I cleaned it and no change so I spent another $148 and replaced it too. 

 

The furnace came on and stayed lit and the main fan kicked on and heat was flowing finally for the first time in 8 days. I was about to start jumping up and down and after 10 minutes it shut back down again. It restarted after a cool down cycle and then the cycles kept getting shorter and shorter. It's acting like it's overheating almost. Without a mamometer I dialed the gas down a little bit at the new valve thinking it was putting out too much flame with no change. 

 

After talking to some other folks they suggested putting the old gas valve back in for kicks and seeing what that does so that's my project for this morning. The thing does seem like it's putting out some serious flamage because the flames are shooting out of the sides of the box even but I don't know what it looked like before so who knows. Worth a shot I guess. If this doesn't fix it I guess its' time to call out the "professionals" again and suck up another service fee charge. 

 

Not what I wanted to deal with right when I got home. In hindsight I wish she would of just called someone out right away but the gas company guy confidently telling her to replace the valve set this whole ball into motion. I'm halfway to a brand new furnace at this point and 90% of the cost was for parts that were un needed. Oh well maybe it'll go another 15 years now and she had been wanting a newer thermostat. If nothing else I got a crash course on how a furnace works and feel pretty confident I could replace any piece on it now. 

 

Thanks for reading my story...    If you can think of anything else that I might be missing, by all means post up. I have to go and inprocess back at my base this morning and plan to start that gas valve swap when get home. 

[akflyer 1427]

If flames are coming out the side of the fire box, you need to crank the pressure back on the valve to get a nice blue flame.. I just went through this in my garage heater, but in the end, I had a crack in the fire box and when the fan would kick on once heat limit switch kicked in, it would blow the flame back into the box and out the front of the heater.. Mine turned into a new heater.  You know us guys, bigger is better right?    I went from a 70k heater to a 150k Modine heater as a buddy had one he had taken out of his shop for an upgrade.  Free is a great price so I put it in the garage.  I can now melt snow off the truck in a matter of minutes instead of hours   Heat recovery time when I open the garage door at -25 is damn near instant now!

 

Good luck on figuring yours out, but on an older heater, if turning the gas pressure at the valve down does not do the trick, I think your looking at a new furnace

 

[C5Engineer 1170]

I put the old original gas valve back in and the damn thing works. Pretty ironic considering that's the first part she replaced. One burner is still acting weird though. I think it may need cleaned. Found out the wife has a relative that owns an HVAC company and would of fixed it for their cost on parts as one last kick in the nuts on this deal.

[akflyer 1427]

I cleaned, vacuumed, blew out etc, all the burners and the entire furnace.. I too only had one burner outta 4 acting up.  That was the one the airbox had a crack in.  It would burn properly when it first lit off, but as soon as it heated up and the metal expanded a bit and the blower kicked on, it would try to burn the house down.

 

If its acting up still, I would get the relatives over to look at it.  A house fire isn't worth a few bucks Mr.! 

 

[EDMO 1078]

I have been in the same - sort of- boat Joey,

My furnace - well, my AC was hit by a surge of lightening one summer - I had the starter capacitor replaced - when fall came and the weather got cool, my furnace wouldn't come on - a "furnace expert" said that the circuit board must have been fried, so he ordered a new one with my $110 - the next day my daughter complained that her hair dryer wouldn't work in her bathroom - I checked it, and reset the GFI for the receptical - well, guess what - the power for the furnace comes thru that GFI........So, I have a naturally unreturnable, new, $110 circuit board just sitting and waiting for the old board to burn out - just have to wait for lightning to strike again, and check the dang GFI first.

Stay Warm, and Go pet your bird!

EDMO 

Edited 21 Dec 2013 by Ed In Missouri

[C5Engineer 1170]

Well update....had another guy come out today and he put his manometer on the valve it was only putting out .87 instead of 3.5. Turns out it had been dialed way down. This is why it was staying running and it immediately threw up a red flag.  He said I hate to do this to you but I gotta pull your burners and inspect your firebox. As soon as he stuck his flashlight in there I could see the issue. The firebox is toast!! I'm wondering now if it's been that way since we've owned the house. I am thinking the valve was turned down to mask the overheating issue. I'm thinking our furnace has been running at about 15% of it's capability since we've owned this house. I guess we get a new furnace for Christmas instead of the engine for our classic Mustang..oh the joys of home ownership. Having a new Trane unit installed on Monday morning. 

[Av8r3400 1178]

Trane is a great unit (made in Wisconsin  ).  Sorry you have to make the choice, though-- but you got to keep the family warm.

 

I had to put new burners in my furnace this year.  It's only 7 years old.  Furnaces are not meant to last like in the good old days.  A 25+ year furnace is not possible any more.  Life span is realistically 7-12 years.

[SkyPirate 8]

I have one of them old fashioned circulating 200,000 BTU wood furnaces ,..it eats a cord of wood every 2 to 3 weeks,..it has 4 cold air returns connected to the circulation fan that's mounted in the plenum ,..heating a 3 floor 10,000 square foot house and we have to crack the windows  on the top floor or it will drive you out unless the temp is at zero f even with the thermostat set at 70,..summertime is nice though,..1/2 ton AC unit cools the house nicely even in 100F degree heat  I have 8" walls with R30 throughout