Doug Kanter wrote:

"willshak" wrote in message
...


Doug Kanter wrote:



"willshak" wrote in message
...




Doug Kanter wrote:





My new house has a 6 month old Goodman 92% HE furnace. A couple of days




ago,




it began cycling in an odd way. It would begin with the normal warmup




phase




(whatever that is), go to the next stage where it's actually blowing


heat


through the ducts, but afterward, the smaller warmup motor would


continue


running for between 5 and 20 minutes. Other times, the warmup stage


would




go




on for 15 minutes BEFORE heat began blowing, and sometimes it would


never


reach the true heating stage.

By the way, when I say "warmup phase", I don't mean there's a flame


yet.




I'm




referring (perhaps incorrectly) to the stage where the thing is


checking




for




proper ventilation or whatever it's doing.

ANYWAY.....my neighbor's car alarm went off at 3:30 AM (the tenth time




since




this morning), and since nobody in my house is up watching TV, it's


very


quiet. The furnace began doing it's odd thing again, so I went down in




the




basement to curse at it. Because the house is quiet, I heard something
interesting. Standing right under the PVC vent pipe, I heard what


sounded


like water - about as much as you'd hear if you were in the basement as




the




last 3 seconds of water drained out of the bath tub. "WTF?", I said to
myself. I looked up and noticed that the installer had nailed a pipe




hanger




in such a way that the thing had come loose, leaving the 15 ft span of




PVC




with a downward bow in the middle. I went upstairs, had a few pieces of
fresh pineapple, went down to the cellar again, pushed up on the pipe


to


straighten it, heard water head toward the outside, and voila! The




furnace




has cycled normally 5 times so far.

Was collected moisture in the pipe preventing the furnace from being
satisfied with the venting?

Or was the pineapple a factor? On the next episode of Nova.....fruit


and


appliances....what science doesn't know yet.





It was the neighbor's car alarm that was loosening the pipe hanger. It
finally let go after the last time.
Whenever his car alarm goes off, go down to the basement and tighten the
hanger. Then throw a brick through one of his car windows.




If I say "throw a brick", people say I'm nuts. But, it sounds normal to


me.


Actually, the matter has been discussed with him. Tonight, I'll call the
cops and tell them I'm VERY angry and going to his house. "Can you get


there


before I do?" That sort of thing.



Every time the car alarm goes off, and I mean EVERY TIME, call the cops
and report the car alarm going off. Call from a phone where they can
hear the alarm in the background, so they will know you're not making it


up.


After the cops answer the call a few times at 3 in the morning, they
might get a little testy with the owner.
Where I used to live, there was a local ordinance for alarms. Whenever
there was an alarm requiring police response that turned out to be
false, there was a fine assessed.



A mechanic friend tells me that in most cases, it's a 5 minute job to adjust
factory alarms. The owners are just too friggin' lazy to get it done. And,
god forbid they should read the instructions.

Some people have their car alarms set so that even someone leaning on it
will set off the alarm. A small gust of wind moving the car may set it
off. Ever been to a fireworks show and hear all the car alarms going off
with the big blasts?