On 20 Dec 2005 14:56:12 -0800, wrote:

You're right. I called them and said what's the alternative to the new
furnace? They said well, you'll be throwing good money after the bad,
but you can replace the blower motor. We'd have to sell you the wheel
as well as those things usually stick to the shaft so much they can't
be removed, and we'll have to inspect the heat exchanger and if we find
cracks we are obliged by law to shut off the heat (you can re-start at
your own risk), yada, yada, yada... The more he talked the more I was
seeing through the thin veil of wanting to sell me the furnace. I may
still need a furnace, mine is 18 years old and may very well be on its

Mine is 26 years old. 27 seasons at the end of this season. . One of
my neighbors with the same furnace at the same age had his replaced a
month ago.

I had to replace the fan motor too. I screwed up, coudln't get it out
of the housing, and paid them. Shame on me.

Also, the first summer I had the house, the transformer powering the
thing failed. They wanted 200 something for the control unit, but I
whined a bit and he offerred to sell me a transformer that didn't fit
physically but has worked electrically for 22 years. I mounted it
inside the furnace panel and ran wires from it to the circuit board.
I suppose I sealed the hole where the original transformer had been,
but right now I'm not sure.

They say I could save money with a more efficient furnace, but the
plan is to fix all house leaks and see how much I really use. After I
had been here a year or two, my oil supplier said I used less oil than
any of my neighbors that he supplied. Don't know why, but I think he
was telling the truth, because the question was whether to have the
furance cleaned.

last leg, but I want to be able to make the decision calmly, not under
pressure of "no-heat in the dead of winter". So, if this fix will see
me through this heating season, it will have paid for itself. BTW,
what are the risks of running the furnace with a damaged heat
exchanger? From what I read, the CO is not that much of an issue since
the heat exchanger is under positive pressure from the blower and the
flue gasses just will not escape into the distribution air. Am I wrong
on this? I understand there is no real good way to check the heat
exchanger, but are there signs of a HUGE problem? Like if I look
inside and see orange flames or something like that. I don't, BTW, I
see nice blue flames that look as they should.

Thanks, guys!
Vladimir


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