Failed Furnace installer blames propane supply

Mark Eatherton

You're not seeking damages...

You are looking for resolution to a problem. And I can't believe you've already been exposed to the trauma of a total home loss. WOW... Remind me not to be anywhere around you during a lightning storm.



You are looking to be made whole again (by not having to pay for the 2nd furnace in a SHORT period of time) and someone is wrong. EIther the installer or the manufacturer. Granted, yours was not running under ideal conditions, but again, I've never seen ANY sealed combustion, gas fired appliance catch on fire due to low fuel supply pressure. Oh sure, the CO would be off the charts if the tanks can't generate enough gas to satisfy the calls for heat, but catch on fire?



Maybe instead of getting a lawyer involved, you should go the route of having an arbitrator involved. Doesn't have the same teeth as a suit, but at least clarifies who is responsible for righting the wrongs that have been done so far.



Paying up and walking away is not going to do ANYONE any good.



This is also why I have had to refuse to do "FREE" work for anyone. I carry liability insurance, but if I have no record of the job, the end user has no coverage under my policy. I give a DEEP discount to friends and family, but no more freebies.



Have YOU tried calling the people at the manufacturer? Might surprise you how easy it is to get to the people at the top.... And if their insurance company catches wind of their non response, they could find themselves in REAL hot water. They have a fiduciary responsibility/obligation to perform due diligence on every potential claim, and attempting to cover it up under the guise of "Warranty VOIDED" due to the alleged wrong tanks is not adequate diligence in my opinion.



I wouldn't just walk away from it. But it is your call.



ME

Bob Harper

sudden occurrenece loss

This is waaaay out of hand here. This is a "sudden occurrence loss", which means it should have been turned over to the homeowner's insurance company on day one. They would hire another HVAC contractor to replace the venting and unit then, with the assistance of the investigating engineering firm, take the old unit into custody. The interested parties would all have to be identified and notified as quickly as possible so they could have a representative present at the Tear Out/ Re-Install and securing of the old unit and pipe. The homeowner gets heat back on same day with an entirely new unit.

The engineering firm conducts their investigation into the cause and origin and reports to the insurance carrier who, in turn, subrogates to the likely suspect. They negotiate a settlement-done.

Now, part of your problem does sound like an issue with inadequate fuel delivery. The problem manifested during a cold spell with two probably undersized tanks.This refers to the 'vaporization rate' of those tanks. As it gets colder and the liquid phase fuel level drops, those tanks become unable to vaporize fuel fast enough for he load. Two undersized vertical DOT cylinders were recently refueled waay too quickly. This should have been a red flag. Each 100lb cylinder holds roughly 2million BTUs available. That's a lot. So, unless all the upstairs windows were left open, you need to look at the firing rate of the unit and correlate the temps over that period to see if the fuel consumed correlates to the fuel it should have required.

I highly recommend using buried ASME containers in northern climates. Also, were is the medium pressure regulator? Is it at the tanks or close to the appliance? What is the diameter and run of the low pressure gas line from the MP reg to the appliance. Any other loads? Any kinks?

You can clock an LP system with a standard NG meter then multiply the result by a factor provided by the meter mfr., usually around 0.63

If someone removed the orifices that were in place during the incident, this constitutes a 'spoliation' of evidence. This means you lose your arguement to defend yourself by masking the evidence. Anytime there is an incident, you must play fair and allow all the interested parties and equal chance to inspect  the evidence. Tampering and spoliation can result in shooting yourself in the foot.

If those PVC pipes saw high temps, you could have pyrolysis of nearby combustibles such as any holes bored the pipes pass through. This case needs professional investigation.