My furnace woes - The season finale OT

[splat1955]

Hey guys,

Well, I hope that everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. I haven't been posting for a while cause the last couple of weeks I've just been trying to catch up on the posts....still have a few pages to go.

Anyway, some of you will remember that my furnace let loose a couple of weeks before Christmas, and we were actually having the system put in at the time I last posted. Well, even though things started out smoothly, they kind of took a left turn.

Since most, if not all furnaces come valved for natural gas, they have to be re-valved for propane. At least that's the way it is up here. Our dryer was the same way...when we bought it, we had to install a propane valve.

Anyway, when the company we hired thought they had installed a propane valve ( seems they carry both types in thier trucks), they somehow accidently installed a natural gas valve( which was already installed in the furnace from the Mfg), and fired it up. No problem at first....worked great. On Christmas eve, my wife, daughter and I went to a co-workers home for a small party. When we got home at about 8 PM, expecting the house to be nice and toasty, it was about 60 degrees. Long story short, it was a fairly cold Christmas day and the installer came out that day to take a look and that's how he found the problem. Unfortunately, he didn't have a propane valve in the truck and couldn't get one until the day after Christmas. Next day he got one, but because of the " Flame Roll Out " caused by the incorrect valve, they had to pull the heater apart, removing the heat exchange and washing it. Well, even after the new valve, it did it again, quite working...and again, no heat. The installer wanted then to replace the induced draft blower, stating that's the only other component it could be. Well, I pulled out the manual for the unit, and there was at least 10 other possibilities as far as I was concerned, and I told him to get us a complete new furnace cause I felt at that point that I was paying for a new unit but felt as this unit had already been through the ringer. Well, the end of the next day, the new unit was in, replacing the previous unit. A bit of an ordeal cause we ended up with about 5 days total without our furnace. But the fire place got a good workout, as did I. But man, now it's been nearly a month and the furnace is working great, better than our old system ever did. Just thought I'd update here. My next post is another tale of woe.

[PatS....]

Sorry to hear about the furnace woes. Good help is hard to find these days.

I just bought a used house furnace from a guy who is getting a new one on Saturday, which is when I get the old one. It, too, is natural gas which will be converted to propane.

I already went to the local propane dealer and got the correct orifice for the conversion. I've done it before, so will do this one as well. I don't trust anyone these days with anything, but changing orifice's is simple...it's getting the proper one that's the trick.

Looking forward to a real furnace in the garage rather than the loud smelly salamander I use now.

It's only -28c right now...who needs a stinkin' furnace???

[splat1955]

Thanks Pat.....

Actually, they were a good bunch of guys...family owned and run business. But what happened was that when they picked up our new Furnace at the Rheem distribution facility in Sacramento, they also picked up the correct LPG valve for the unit. Because in this area so many folks use LPG, lots of new natural gas valves get returned to the facility. Well, when they picked up our new furnace and the box with the new (supposedly) LPG valve in it, it actually had a natural gas valve in the box that had been returned to the facility. And although it's a fairly big valve it does look a lot like the LPG valve, but this valve is kind of a newer technology cause it's actually 2 valves in one..and I don't think these guys had really seen too many of this type of valve cause only the 2 higher end models have them....and I guess nobody actually held both iin hand at once to compare. I guess it's a reasonable mistake and they were very apologetic about the issue. But, none the less, since that " flame roll out " seemed to have caused other issues with the new furnace, I felt I was owned a new furnace...since ours was just a few days old anyway...and they didn't have any problems with replacing the whole unit...cause it was their fault. Anyway, I gotta say, this new technology, compared to our old furnace, keeps every room toasty...with no cold spots....every room is pretty much within 1 degree of each other and the set temp. We are lovin' it!