*CENSOREDUNPRINTABLE* furnace!!!!

[AmbulanceDriver]

Got home from work tonight.....  SWMBO is down visiting her sister in Phoenix....   I let the dog out, kick up the thermostat from the daytime "low" setting....   Hear the draft inducer kick on, move around the house for a bit....    Pause for a bit thinking, "man, it's taking a long time for the blower to kick on...." right about when the draft inducer kick off.   What the frack?

Head out to the garage, and smell a hint of NG.....   Double what the frack???

Open up the garage door, air everything out for about five minutes.   Shut the breaker for the furnace off and back on to reset everything....    Bump the thermostat back up and head back out to the garage to look at the furnace during the startup....   Draft inducer, check....    Hear the igniter relay kick on, and then the gas valve....   Hrm....   No glow from the igniter.....

FRACK!

And of course, it's on the coldest night so far this season.

I'd already taken tomorrow off because I was sick.   Good thing, cause I'll be calling the local furnace guy first thing in the morning....  I'm guessing since I heard all the relays, etc, that it's just the igniter.  I hope.

Now I've got a big fire going in the fireplace (*really* wishing we'd gotten the insert we were looking at last season!) and a small little electric forced air heater that will be going in the bedroom tonight.

Frack.

[Nick1911]

I didn't tell you this, but if you have a failed hot surface ceramic igniter, you can totally light it by hand with one of those long reach lighter.  You have to light it off at the right point in the cycle, and it won't (of course) relight automatically....

[charby]

I didn't tell you this, but if you have a failed hot surface ceramic igniter, you can totally light it by hand with one of those long reach lighter.  You have to light it off at the right point in the cycle, and it won't (of course) relight automatically....

The furnace in my bachelor pad has a habit of going through igniters a few times a winter, so I kept a propane torch handy by the furnace for lighting it manually as needed.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Nick, I figured that i could probably have that, but by the point in time I thought about doing it, I'd already had a couple fingers of Old Overholt, and decided that I probably shouldn't blow my house up while SWMBO is on vacation....  :D

[Nick1911]

Nick, I figured that i could probably have that, but by the point in time I thought about doing it, I'd already had a couple fingers of Old Overholt, and decided that I probably shouldn't blow my house up while SWMBO is on vacation....  :D

My good man; that's the best time to do it!

Honestly, manually igniting a furnace is not a big deal but I can certainly understand a healthy respect for combustion appliances.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Are the ceramic igniters pretty much universal, or are they pretty manufacturer specific?

[Nick1911]

Are the ceramic igniters pretty much universal, or are they pretty manufacturer specific?

I'm still pretty green in the HVAC game, [Jim, Ron, 280 feel free to hop in] but it seems to me there are a few variations, but they are very much commodity goods.  Any HVAC company should have no difficulty finding an appropriate one for you, they are very common items at the supply houses from third party manufacturers.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Thanks....   Watched some vids on replacing it, Once I have daylight tomorrow (garage lights and furnace are on same circuit) and more blood in my alcohol system, I'll take a look at the igniter and see if it's something I can safely (and easily) tackle or if I want to pay someone to tackle it.

[Nick1911]

Wow, I'm surprised that the garage lighting is on the same circuit.

Phoenix uses the 2011 NEC code.  From that code section 422, subsection 12 states:

Code: [Select]

Central Heating Equipment. Central heating
equipment other than fixed electric space-heating equip-
ment shall be supplied by an individual branch circuit.
Now, perhaps they were able to slide by suggesting that the garage lighting was the required luminaire  noted in the international mechanical code, but I think that only applies to equipment under floors and in attics.

Guess who's been studying code to take the test for a master mechanical license?   

Anyway, let us know how it goes of if there's anything we can help with!

[AmbulanceDriver]

oh dude.... the sheer # of electrical code violations on this house is mindboggling.   we've been gradually working on cleaning things up as we can, but we're to the point where we really have to pretty much redo the electrical to get things fixed...  not just the lights, but the whole garage is on the same breaker as the furnace.  granted, being a gas furnace it doesn't have a huge electrical draw, but............

[lupinus]

Nick, I figured that i could probably have that, but by the point in time I thought about doing it, I'd already had a couple fingers of Old Overholt, and decided that I probably shouldn't blow my house up while SWMBO is on vacation....  :D

You'd rather blow it up while she's in it?

Sent via tapatalk

[RoadKingLarry]

What happened to the good old fashioned pilot light?


My NG furnace hasn't been on in over two years.

http://www.heatilatorecochoice.com/products/details.asp?cat=wood-stoves&f=WS22

[tokugawa]

Nice too have an alternate heat source. 

[Tallpine]

the coldest night so far this season

So it got below 50 degrees in Portland     

Our main heat is the woodstove.  The electric baseboards are backup.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Woke up this morning and holy crap the house was cold.....   56 inside.....   30 out there.....    Decided that now was as good a time as any to see if I was gonna blow myself up manually igniting the furnace.....   

It's now 67 and climbing inside......    MUCH better.   Once I get it to a comfy temp in here, I'll pull the old igniter and start making some calls.   

[AmbulanceDriver]

Hoooray!   Heat!  Without holding a flame in the furnace to start it!

[Triphammer]

Did you replace the igniter or did it just re-light?

[AmbulanceDriver]

Replaced igniter - it had a fairly significant crack in it.

Ran into an interesting issue while trying to get a replacement - most of the HVAC parts places would *only* sell to a licensed HVAC contractor.  Finally found one place that would sell to a homeowner.   Most of them claimed it was an insurance/liability thing, saying that if I blew myself up, they didn't want me to come back and sue them for selling me the part that let me blow myself up.

An interesting argument - I suspect it has more to do with a bit of collusion between them and the furnace repair guys.   I mean why would I pay the local HVAC guy $100 for the part (which, by the way, the one shop that sells to the public sold me for $50) and then another $150 for him to install it if I could just get the part myself and pop it in there.

[Jim147]

Ran into an interesting issue while trying to get a replacement - most of the HVAC parts places would *only* sell to a licensed HVAC contractor.  Finally found one place that would sell to a homeowner.   Most of them claimed it was an insurance/liability thing, saying that if I blew myself up, they didn't want me to come back and sue them for selling me the part that let me blow myself up.

An interesting argument - I suspect it has more to do with a bit of collusion between them and the furnace repair guys.   I mean why would I pay the local HVAC guy $100 for the part (which, by the way, the one shop that sells to the public sold me for $50) and then another $150 for him to install it if I could just get the part myself and pop it in there.

We do need to feed our family.

The part stores hate the returns from homeowners guessing at the problems and throwing parts at it or shorting a part out falling to kill power to the unit. They get enough of that from some of the "techs". I had a few of that type work for me over the years.

With APS members being smarter than the average bear, I do sell parts if you talk to me about the problem and don't mind waiting for UPS.

jim

[AmbulanceDriver]

yeah, normally don't mind waiting for the big brown truck o' happiness, but since my house was 56 degrees inside this morning, figured needed the part sooner rather than later....   And trust me, there's times I'm more than willing to pay for the expertise.   I might grumble about paying for it, but if I don't know what I'm doing, I'm all for hiring someone who does.   But since this was one screw and one plug, plus I confirmed that everything else appeared to be working by manually igniting the furnace.....  I'll gladly save the $200...  :D  

[280plus]

Sorry I'm getting here late to the game. I've been out fixing furnaces and hanging pipe. First off, I never considered lighting the things manually before but I guess if you time it right it's no big deal. I'll say it's a little
of both on the why some stores won't sell you parts. There is a liability issue with the whole natural gas/especially propane explody thing. Plus, I just ran into it. Smarter than average customer went to the same supplier I did to get the same part I had already gotten for him. The only thing that saved me was I got the last one they had about 2 hours before he went in there. heh heh hehhhhh,,, They quoted him less than I did so I lost $30 on the deal or he was just going to wait till the next day and not buy the one I had. I told him that was fine but if he installed it himself (logic board, lots of wires) and he screwed it up he was in big trouble. And like Jim said, we have to make money too. He thought about it and offered my $30 less than my original quote and I said screw it and took it. Which, incidentally, is why I hate residential. Commercial is cut and dry. Send them the bill and then a check arrives in the mail a few weeks later. So I guess my residential rates should go up so that I have room to get haggled down. lol

[280plus]

Ohhhh, I forgot, your enemy is most likely moisture. Those things suck up moisture over the off season and if they are excessively "wet" the first time they go on again all the moisture turns to steam and fractures them from within. They are also rather fragile. They DO seem to have made strides in this area though because I see less of them failing these days. Some used to do it every year. When you do change them out be careful to not touch the element. The oils and acids on your fingers will also cause them to fail prematurely. This is all hearsay of course. "Scuttlebutt" lol

[Sergeant Bob]

Last winter, my furnace quit when the outside temp was below zero (of course that's when it happens!) and I thought it was the thermocouple. The temperature inside the house was was in the high 30's. As I wasn't sure what thermocouple to buy, or where to buy one, I decided to call a local HVAC repair company, which due to high demand (furnaces break when it's real cold, AC's break when it's real hot) could not get anyone out till the next day (the furnace quit about mid day).

As it turned out, I made a good decision. The tech found that the regulator outside the house was frozen up, restricting the gas flow to the furnace, causing it to shut down whenever it tried to start. He did replace the thermocouple, plus repair the regulator and charged me $118, which I was more than happy to pay.

[AmbulanceDriver]

280, we've actually been running the furnace a bit already this season, so it wasn't a moisture issue....   But yeah, the guy at the shop was very specific not to touch the element, not to bump it on anything, in fact don't even look at it wrong, or it will break.   :)   Kinda reminds me of changing the bulbs in the different spot/floodlights at my old church.   You could always tell when someone managed to touch the bulb while swapping it because it would blow up as soon as it got powered on.

[K Frame]

We do need to feed our family.

So do we, which is often why we try to fix the simple things ourselves.

If I had had the knowledge, I would have done the necessary work on my mother's boiler last year when the company in town was blatanatly ripping her off, all the while screaming that her boiler is obsolete, a death trap, and needs to be replaced immediately (for $15,000).

She managed to find a semi-retired independent who did what the other company didn't, and returned the critter to flawless operation for about $1,000.