voiding warranties

Steve Ebels_3

Heating equipment running when the drywallers are finishing their sanding. That dust will take out a furnace blower motor in just a couple months.

I always ask up front if they will need temporary heat on the job. I keep a couple 80% furnaces around just for that purpose. They are set up with an extension cord for power, thermostat screwed to the side of the furnace and we simply vent them through a piece of pan out a window. You have to add it into your price of course.

I would tell the customer that the draft inducer and the blower motor will suffer a drastically shortened life span if subjected typical jobsite conditions during construction. Warranty covers manufacturing defects. A motor ground to bits or a blower wheel plugged with drywall dust are obviously not in that category. It's not that the warranty would be void, just that the failure would not be a warranty situation.

radmix

voiding warranties


At what point would you void a warranty. I have a project that the home owner asked that i turn the heating system on before the envelope of the house was closed up. No insulation in the walls or ceiling. It seems the carpenters need to stay warm while working. The system works 24/7 just to maintain a 55* temp most of the time. This is not the first time I had this request. I had a customer one time insist I put the heat on before the windows and doors were installed. Some people get very anxious.

jp_2

why would that

void a warranty?

a heating system should be able to run 24/7 full blast.

matter a fact, that type of running should actually be easier on the system than constant on/off/on/off.

Jack

Actually,

some manuf specifically exclude their products being used as a construction heater. As previously noted, construction debris, and especially sheet rock, can severely affect warm air equipment. You can, and I have, see condensing sections that are absolutely packed with dust.

I once got a call from a homeowner who got his hands on a condensing furnace I was representing at the time. He installed it in his basement with no duct other than a supply plenum. He did strap the plenum to the floor joists with perfed metal tape. He let the condensate run out onto the new concrete floor. Come spring he call and said he needed a new furnace as the one he bought in the fall was no good. I went up to look at it and the bottom four inches of the furnace were missing. The condesate consumed the bottom of the unit. What really blew me away though was that his nice new 4" slab was approximately 2" thick in about a 12' circle around the unit. The aggregate that remained looked like it has been run in a rock polisher for a couple months. That was my fault too. I kid you not!