Know when to call a technician

joann_2

Hi,

I am a consumer. I live in a new condo development (garden style apartments). We have propane heat. For the past 24 hours, the heating unit blower won't shut down. It appears to be blowing cool air or just blowing air. I don't think it is ciculating heat. I finally shut it down overnight so I could sleep. I'm wondering if we are out of propane or if this is some energy saving device thing going on.

Does this make any sense? Should I have the unit looked at? Appreciate the help

S Ebels

Some people

This is an extreme example but some people don't know when to fold 'em up and call for help. I just shook my head in amazement when I saw all the parts on the basement floor.

I was called to look at this guys furnace by his son-in-law who told me his FIL had been working on the furnace for better than a week and couldn't get it going. I found an old Clare 90%r in the basement, the owner of which is a retired engineer. The old boy obviously knew a thing or two because he had rigged up a "chilled water" coil in the plenum running off a flowing well in the back yard. Kinda cobbled together but hey, it worked. .............Back to the furnace problem. The burner setup on these was the old square tube design with slots in the side of the top and a crosslighter tube that carried flame from one to the next. I powered it up and all was normal with the ignition sequence until it hit the main valve, at which point, only the burner directly under the HSI lit. There was no flame on the cross lighter and the reminaing burners just sat there spewing gas until a sufficient amount for spontaneous combustion accumulated or it shut down on the flame sensor. Neither event was desired.

These furnaces, like some older Yorks and Luxaires have an actual orifice for the crosslighter tube, fed by a separate tapping on the mainfold. I took that apart, cleaned the orifice, brushed out the tube and in about 15 minutes of time, had the old girl running fine.

Now here's the good part, or maybe strange, or maybe sad part. As mentioned above, the homeowner had been trying to repair the furnace himself. He had a pair of Simpson 260 meters there on the floor, an old high end Fluke 8240 series VOM, and more hand tools than I carry in my van scattered on one side of the furnace. On the other side were the following parts:

2- W/R 50E47 series control boards

1 new style W/R control board with integrated fan function

3- flame sensors

1 new draft inducer complete

1 new draft inducer motor

2- hot surface ignitors

1 W/R nitride ignitor update kit with the control board.

2 new burners

1 new fan relay

1 Honeywell fan/limit control

1 unrecognizable electronic control that he had tried to make work as a blower control.

Just adding them all in my head, I estimated between $700-$900 of parts conservatively. None of which were needed. I charged him $75 for a local service call and I think I would have paid that amount to see the expression on his wife's face when I gave her the bill and explained what was wrong. I didn't hang around to here the ensuing conversation between them.

No earthshaking points to be made here other than 99% of homeowners shouldn't mess with their heating appliance.

........The look on her face after sitting in a cold house with electric heaters running all over the place for a week...........priceless

Jeff Lawrence_25

Did ya have to carry a ladder in?

Just Kidding. :>)

Good for you! You fixed it, charged a reasonable fee, and walked out. You go back there soon, you'll see blistered paint on the walls.

Jeff

[Deleted User]

Nothing worse than an uncomfortable woman....

I know from personal experience this week. My womans little boiler decided to have some issues. Like no space heat. It still made DHW, and thanks to my weirdly thinking mind, has a crossover between DHW and the hydronic heating system piping. It was enhanced gravity, but it kept the chill off great.

New board the next day and were back in business.

Of course, the LLA is doing well and expected home from the hospital tomorrow after a well run hysterectomy, and "There'd by gawd had better be some warm floors in that house"...

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. She's doing unbelievably well.

She WILL be comfortable, or my name's not Orville Reddenbacher. :-)

Orv

Wayco Wayne_2

I've had customers

like that. One good old boy wouldnt call me until he absolutely had to. I admired his persistance. Even though he would have had more time to do other things if he had called me earlier in the process. He took ill and before he passed he had me in to replace the entire system so his bride of 60 years wouldnt have to worry about anything. He was bedridden by that time and he was very appreciative that I would take pictures of the job and print him out some 8 x 10's so he could observe the installation. I attended his service too. WW

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Maine Doug_51

Gee, at those rates

I wish you could have installed the gas line for my son's dryer. Over 300 bucks for a bit over an hour. Good thing I was not there. Bet it was flat rate with a $50 charge for every threaded joint. The dryer is next to the water heater so the gas line was within 3 feet. Did he check gas pressure with the appliances running-- no.

Sorry, guess this is not about heating. Well, unless you count clothes.....

Am up early as the pipe insulator guys are installing insulation in the boiler room so I must be cranky. Going for coffee now!

Dale

yatzee method

Nice diognosis Steve, Capt. Toolhead the appliance service writer calls what you saw after a board game where the dice is thrown to see what happens. Of course knowing the sequence of operation is what makes a technician worth his/her wages, the symptom led to the fix. Those type furnaces are strange, Burn hole in the cross lighter near the glow bar results in allot of glow bar sales.

Mitch_4

sounds like my all time favorite call

Lennox pulse...every conceivable piece in the basement. everywire removed..all of it in a box.

"I tried to fix it...but I am in over my head" he says..

2 hours later after re-installing everything and rebuilding it from the ground up...problem is thermostat anticipator fried..no call for heat.

jp_2

my favorite one.

several times I got called into a GM plant to service 'our' machine. problem started during night shift, day shift kepth working on it til i got there, normally late afternoon. I'd ask what happen? nobody knew for sure. so I'd say, lets put it all back together and see what happens. most times once the machine got all put back together, it ran fine!

Darrell

My favortite call is from a sweet little "ole gal who knows how fragile her mans ego is...she'd put up with him doing his dead level best with silicone and duct tape...and he ususaly made it work...kinda. Then when he went fishing, she'd call me and asks me to come and fix it, make it look like I was never there, and pays me cash from her quilting money. Either he never caught on to the game, or he did and wouldn't say anything.

By the way, the man happened to be my pastor!

S Ebels

Joann

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