HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY
Remember this thread?
Time for an update.... It's been an excitable weekend here at Casa Driver....
Some of you may have seen it on the book of faces.
Well, Thursday night, SWMBO was out running a couple of errands out with the girls, and I was working on dinner. Well, a couple minutes in, I hear the smoke alarm start to go off down the hall. Not my cooking, so I shut the stove off and go figure out what the heck is going on. No visible smoke, so I hit the hush button, since I'm thinking maybe it was steam or something - not really likely, but that was the first guess. Start to walk away, and it starts going again. Hrm, says I, this is odd... So I turn around, and sure enough, I'm starting to smell something - smells like a hot electrical element or similar. And now I'm seeing a light haze of smoke under the cold air return (wasn't obvious that this was the source, but that's where it was kinda hanging).
Crap.
Grab the dog, call 911 as I'm walking out the door, and toss him in the truck while I wait for the cavalry to arrive. Well, I learned something interesting that night about how Clackamas Fire District handles things. Let's just say, they're "proactive". Portland fire, smoke in a structure, as long as it's not heavy black smoke, they send a single engine company to investigate. Clackamas, oh, they send a full box. Three engine companies, a truck company, and a batt chief. Well, at least the neighbors are entertained.
So they get here, do their thing, thermal imaging cameras on everything, send the junior man up into my attic with a TIC, yada yada. About thirty minutes later, they give the all clear. Talking to the captain from the first in company, and he's explaining everything they checked, and what they found, didn't find, etc. And he says that from what he was smelling, he's thinking it's the furnace.
Next morning, call the furnace company out. They get a tech out here couple hours after my call (first really good sign I'm gonna like this company) and he digs right in. Starts running tests on the furnace, checking everything out. 'Bout an hour later, he gives the verdict.
First off, this furnace is 27 years old. I knew it was old, just didn't realize it was *that* old. Lasted 7-9 years longer than what they normally last.
Main blower motor is on the way out - in fact, that's what caused the smoke in the cold air return. Motor locked up, overheated, and let the magic smoke out. He was able to get it going again by manually spinning it as it was trying to start up, but who knows when it's going to lock up again.
Draft inducer motor has at least one bearing going bad.
Heat exchanger tubes overheated due to the burners going with the blower locked up. Embrittled, eroded, unknown how much life is left in them (27 years old, remember, so probably not that much life left in them to begin with).
Pressure limit switch is toast. Totally dead. He tried cleaning it and tested it again, no go. So now the board won't signal the igniter to go and the gas valve to open even with the blower motor turning again.
He looks at me, and gives me the news. He likes fixing things. He wants to fix it - but he feels that our furnace just isn't fixable - at least not in a really feasible manner. Easily 2 grand to fix everything that's wrong with this thing. And that's with no real guarantee that something won't fail soon - and doesn't include replacing the heat exchanger, either....
So we set up an appointment to talk new furnaces... Cause not only is this thing old, it's an 80% efficient model (when it was first installed) and probably has lost some of that to boot over the last 27 years. Tech ballparked it was probably around 70%, maybe even worse.
We retreated to my in-laws for the weekend since we didn't have heat, and the house was getting downright chilly. Space heaters can only do so much.
And tomorrow, we get our brand spanking new, 96% efficient unit installed. Including a brush through duct cleaning for the entire hot and cold system in the house, we're looking at just under 7 grand installed. We could have saved a couple grand by going with another 80% unit, but realistically, I figure we're gonna be saving money in a few years based on the difference in price and efficiency.
Another plus with this company - we're sitting here discussing options with the sales guy Friday night, and he glances over and sees my work jacket hanging on a hook. "You a first responder?" "Well, I was in the field for a number of years, and now I'm in dispatch." "Ok, we'll I'm gonna give you our 5% first responder discount then." You know he didn't have to do that. Didn't even have to mention it - and we had no idea they even offered that. But he spoke up and told us about it. Was a right nice thing for him to do for us.