While gas burners tend to have more sophisticated controls than oil burners
and would probably be easier to tie and alarm to the lockout function, you'd
still be leaving yourself vulnerable to failures of other parts of the
system, like thermostat failure or wiring failure or power failure.
Ultimately temperature is what you're concerned with, and the simplest thing
to tie an alarm to



"RBM" rbm2(remove wrote in message
...
There may be depending upon the burner, however the problem with your
current thinking is that the burner primary control,(the box with the
reset) doesn't necessarily have power to it at all times. Once other parts
of the control system send power to the primary, its internal controls
assure that the burner makes fire, and if not, locks it out. Without
building a complicated contraption, the easiest solution would be a
temperature sensing device and a phone dialer.



"mm" wrote in message
...
I know what happens electrically with my current old oil furnace when
the oil doesn't ignite. A relay is tripped that has to be reset
mechanically with a red button.

But someday soon I may need a new furnace and I don't know how they
work.

Here is the reason: I'm getting a new burglar alarm (mine went up in
smoke, literally) and my friend told me they had a built-in temp
sensor, to notify them if the house temp got too low.

It turns out this model requires an add-on switch, and while trying to
decide where to put it and how to wire it, it occurred to me: Why
wait until the house is getting too cold. Then if I'm away, my
friends only have a day or two to get there and fix the furnace and
warm the place up. Why not also notify the monitoring company there
is a problem when the furnace first tries to ignite and can't (no
fuel, nozzle clogged, furnace broken, etc.)

My current furnace has a mechanical relay, a latching relay I
presume????

and if it is not double pole or double throw, I could buy a latching
relay that is, and use it instead and connect the unused pole to
notify the alarm that the furnace needs resetting. I would give that
its own zone, so that I would notice it even when I was home, when
setting the alarm.

But I'm guessing everything is transistorized in a new furnace I buy.
I don't have trouble working with IC's and circuit boards, but that
doesn't mean there will be a place to connect. Is there any way to do
the same thing with the new furnace? Is there a brand of furnace that
would make this easier than other brands?