I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has a gas furnace.

I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.

Thanks.

ArghArgh writes:

I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has
a gas furnace.

I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and
typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.

Thanks.

Annual service on a gas furnace?
Just say no. It doesn't need annual service. Every 5 years if you like
to waste money. Natural gas makes so little soot there is nothing
to clean. You might flush the hot water circuits if you have hot water.
Every 5 to 10 years for that.

A forced air system needs the filters changed. Something you should
really do yourself.

--
Dan Espen

On Saturday, November 18, 2017 at 11:48:34 AM UTC-5, Dan Espen wrote:
ArghArgh writes:

I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has
a gas furnace.

I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and
typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.

Thanks.

Annual service on a gas furnace?
Just say no. It doesn't need annual service. Every 5 years if you like
to waste money. Natural gas makes so little soot there is nothing
to clean. You might flush the hot water circuits if you have hot water.
Every 5 to 10 years for that.

A forced air system needs the filters changed. Something you should
really do yourself.

--
Dan Espen

+1

I've had gas furnaces for 30 years. Never had a service call. But then
I do a quick inspection myself when starting it each season to make sure
it looks good, that the flames are even, blue, etc.
Like you say, no soot to clean, no nozzles to clog.
If you don't self inspect, then like you say, having a service call once
every 5 years or so is probably a good thing. And change the filters
as needed.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 08:16:08 -0800 (PST), ArghArgh
wrote:

I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has a gas furnace.
I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.
Thanks.


As others have said - an annual service call might be overkill.
I'm on the dirtier propane gas and go for 2 - 3 year service.
So far it's mainly labour - ~ $ 150. - 200.
I'm in a rural area requiring ~ an hour of driving + working time.
: inspect furnace, vent, blower
: clean around burner and check flame
: check & clean condensate system - pump & drain line
I wish he'd inspected thermostat batteries - old corroded
batteries recently cost me a new one $ 120.

If the furnace is working OK - the "consumables" are simple -
- just the filter ! Do-It-Yourself - mine are 20x20x1 - I get them
on sale for ~ 5 bucks and stock up & replace them at 6 weeks.
Another preventative maintenance item might be the blower belt -
- every 10 - 15 years , maybe $ 20.
Do NOT try to squeeze another year out-of cracked & frazzled
15 year old $ 20. belt !
John T.

On 11/18/17 1:04 PM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:48:31 -0000, Dan Espen
wrote:

ArghArgh writes:

I've always owned homes with oil furnaces.* My condo (8 years old) has
a gas furnace.

I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and
typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.

Thanks.

Annual service on a gas furnace?
Just say no.* It doesn't need annual service. Every 5 years if you like
to waste money.* Natural gas makes so little soot there is nothing
to clean.* You might flush the hot water circuits if you have hot
water.
Every 5 to 10 years for that.

A forced air system needs the filters changed.* Something you should
really do yourself.

Agreed - I have a gas furnace (boiler as I'm in the UK).* It was here
when I moved in 17 years ago.* No servicing, ever.* It's failed ONCE.
The thermocouple (the thing that senses the pilot light has gone out)
failed.* I replaced it myself at a cost of £7 and 10 minutes of my
time.* Why should I pay £150 a year for a service which achieves
nothing?* In 17 years that would have paid for 5 new boilers!


If you have a gas pilot light, (as opposed to newer electric spark
type "pilot"), then having a spare thermocouple on-hand is a good
practice. They do fail relatively often (5-10 years ISTM) and furnace
will not fire up without a working thermocouple. They fail with no
warning, and invariably on the coldest days ;-)

Also, familiarize yourself with the process of re-lighting a gas pilot
if it should happen to blow out , due to high wind downdraft, or gas
line shutoff for any reason.

On 11/18/2017 6:16 AM, ArghArgh wrote:
I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old)
has a gas furnace.

I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be
and typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.

Thanks.

If your blower motor can be oiled you should oil the front and rear
bearings 2X a year. My Trane FCU works fine after 25+ years.

On Sun, 19 Nov 2017 00:00:12 -0000, Birdbrain Macaw (now "James Wilkinson"),
the pathological attention whore of all the uk ngs, blathered again:

FLUSH the mentally deficient attention whore's usual inane drivel

--
Some examples of Birdbrain Macaw's (now "James Wilkinson" LOL) sociopathic
"mathematics":
"100 is 5 times more than 20.
"5 times less" is the opposite of "5 times more", so this makes 100 back to
20 again.
20 is 5 times less than 100, the same as dividing by 5.
An elephant is 5 times bigger than a tiger, a tiger is 5 times smaller than
an elephant."
MID:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm comparing being able to tell the difference between 21 and 12 to being
able to tell the difference between 21 and 12. If you think that it's easy
to think a 12 year old is 21, it's only fair to use it as a reason when you
get caught ****ing a 12 year old, which you mistook to be 21."
MID:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"50 watts is ten times more than 5 watts. Likewise 5 watts is ten times
less than 50 watts."
MID:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The answer is 9. The 0.5 chicken is dead, so basically it's 1 chicken
laying 1 egg per day. The half egg was one halfway out, the only egg for
that day."
MID:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"let's say you prefer 20C water. If you go in 10C water you'd say that was
cold (10C colder than you want). Now you go in 0C water, that's twice as
cold, because it's now 20C colder than you want."
MID:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Even if only 25% of people want it legalised, and let's say LibDems already
have 15% of the vote. If 75% of that 15% stop voting for them because they
don't want it legalised, they're down to 3.75%. But 25% of the 85% who
didn't previously vote for them, change their mind due to this policy, they
gain 21.25%, giving them a total of 25%, well up from 15%."
MID:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If I say 1, then "or so", the "or so" means another 1.
If I say 5, then "or so", the "or so" means up to another 5.
Is English not your first language?"
MID:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you live for 4 years and die, you wasted 4 years. If you live for 20
years and die, you wasted 20 years, that's 5 times worse."
MID:

replying to ArghArgh, Iggy wrote:
Dan Epsen is entirely correct and you should use high performance air filters
rated (there's a maximum MERV rating) for your system, to keep the system and
any supply ductwork as new and clean as possible. Meaning, you absolutely MUST
have a singular service call now, they'll do the Water Heater too. You don't
know what you don't know.

Maybe, ductwork or exhaust flue piping was done wrong or is loose and leaking.
Maybe, you have a water system and dielectric unions are missing. Maybe, your
gas valve's wide open instead of correctly turned-down for maximum efficiency.
Maybe, your exhaust draft is weak. Maybe, you have Air Conditioning and the
coil's dirty and reducing system performance. Etcetera.

--
for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/mainte...e-1151258-.htm

On 11/18/17 6:00 PM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 23:05:06 -0000, Retired wrote:

If you have a gas pilot light, (as opposed to newer electric spark
type "pilot"), then having a spare thermocouple on-hand is a good
practice.

Why?* I can get one on Ebay within a few days.

The lowest temperature recorded in England was in Shropshire
in 1982. Minus 26.1 Centigrade. That's about 15 below F. Minnesota
people
probably wear T shirts on those days.
There might be issues with pipes freezing and such if the regular
furnace is replaced
with a few space heaters.
That said, Ace Hardware carries thermocouples. It isn't that hard
to get one.

On Saturday, November 18, 2017 at 7:44:06 PM UTC-5, Iggy wrote:
replying to ArghArgh, Iggy wrote:
Dan Epsen is entirely correct

I didn't see Dan saying he MUST have a service call right now.



and you should use high performance air filters
rated (there's a maximum MERV rating) for your system,

That's great if the system has a MERV filter add-on filter housing.
If not, you can't shove a high perf filter into a furnace that only holds the
typical 1" filter. And then many systems today use electrostatic filters
that have no filters to replace.

Why?* I can get one on Ebay within a few days.

The lowest temperature recorded in England was in Shropshire
in 1982. Minus 26.1 Centigrade. That's about 15 below F. Minnesota
people probably wear T shirts on those days.
There might be issues with pipes freezing and such if the regular
furnace is replaced with a few space heaters.
That said, Ace Hardware carries thermocouples. It isn't that hard
to get one.


Duh.

replying to trader_4, Iggy wrote:
I expounded on Dan's broad and very limited statement, you may notice the word
"and" was used. If you buy a house without an Inspection, you're a fool and if
you use anything in that house without an Inspection or fine-tuning or
cleaning or lubricating or bleeding or emptying you're twice the fool.

And yes, there are High Performance a.k.a. Ultra Allergen 1" filters from a
number of companies. I've been using them for over a decade and they do
extremely well and just as well as longer-life multi-inch filters. You just
need to be aware of the system's MERV capacity, so you don't overdo it too
much and start losing efficiency.

--
for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/mainte...e-1151258-.htm

On 11/18/17 11:48 AM, Dan Espen wrote:
Annual service on a gas furnace?
Just say no. It doesn't need annual service. Every 5 years if you like
to waste money. Natural gas makes so little soot there is nothing
to clean.

Interesting that this topic just came up, because my gas
furnace has just started acting up a bit.

It's a Burnham 205b, installed in 1988. It's always run
fine, never a problem, till this season. The house has old
cast iron radiators.
Here's the furnace:
https://s33.postimg.org/f4f32j273/Furnace.jpg

It still heats, circulates the water, and does what's expected.
However... it's recently started discharging water from
[what I believe is] the "pressure relief valve" (has a
downtube running towards the floor). Here's the valve:
https://s33.postimg.org/jqb7b05rj/Valve.jpg

The valve doesn't seem to leak (valve itself and the
connections around it). I can lift the valve's lever and
open it, water runs out, then let the lever go, water flow
stops, as it should.

But when the furnace runs, at some point it will discharge
between a quart and a gallon. I can keep a bucket under it
and empty it, but it never behaved like this before.

One other thing I've noticed (from some discharge that ended
up on the floor before I realized what was going on), is
that when the water evaporates, white residue (calcium?) is
left behind:
https://s33.postimg.org/sy3frq7ov/Floor.jpg

I'm wondering if the innards of the water/heating area have
become clogged up with scale and sediment over the last 30
years?
(the same way a water heater can get clogged)

If that's the case, I'm wondering if 30 years is about all
I'm going to get from it?

replying to J.Albert, Iggy wrote:
I'm not an HVAC tech, but no, the system is closed so it should still be
pretty much new inside of everything...so I wouldn't suspect and haven't ever
run into a build-up issue. What I suspect the problem to be, is with your
Expansion Tank. Either the tank's failed or it lost pressure and is no longer
functioning.

Put a manual tire pump on the Expansion Tank's Schrader Valve and pump it up
to just 7psi. It'll either hold and you fixed the problem or the air will
bleed back out through the Hy-Vent and the problem will persist until the
Expansion Tank's replaced. And yes, 30-years is a boiler's "average" lifespan,
some last less and others go a whole lot longer.

--
for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/mainte...e-1151258-.htm

On Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:09:43 AM UTC-5, micky wrote:
Visiting my brother who has an LG refrigerator, LFC22740ST.

When I pull out the freezer drawer and then the ice tray, ice cubes get
knocked off the pile into the main drawer I think, and worse, behind the
drawer and then onto the floor.Â* Up to 6 pieces of ice end up on t he
floor each time, and I have to pick each one up.


This is side-by-side with the freezer in a drawer at the bottom. So no
water in the door.


The pile of ice is 6" high or more.Â* This apartment is vacant most of
the time until it's sublet and I'd like to turn off the icemaker, but
all I can find is Ice Plus, which will make even more ice.


I can't find a swtich to turn the icemaker off.


Googling just returns hits about water spilling on the floor, not ice.
And this model of LG is probably not listed on the LG site.

On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 08:16:08 -0800 (PST), ArghArgh
wrote:

I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has a gas furnace.

I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.

Thanks.
For the first couple years I had a gas furnace i paid (through the
nose) to have the furnace "serviced" and it still failed on one of the
coldest nights of the year - on Dec 23. It needed a new blower motor.

I went out and found a replacement myself and have not paid for a
furnace "service" since.
When the furnace was 30 yhears old I had it replaced so I would not,
theoretically, need to call a furnace repairman for a non-working
furnace. I hace "serviced" it myself ever since - including 2
"repairs".

My friend, on the other hand, has continued to have his Lennox
"serviced" every year - the last service being Friday morning. Friday
evening the furnace kicked the breaker. We reset the breaker and it
worked for one cycle - then the blower failed to run and the furnace
shut down again. Yesterday the furnace guy came in and checked a few
things and told him it needed over $2700 in parts - plus labour - to
fix it.

Getting a new furnace Dec 4th.

What he's paid in "service" over the last 16 years would have paid
for the new furnace - - -

On 11/19/2017 3:23 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:

My friend, on the other hand, has continued to have his Lennox
"serviced" every year - the last service being Friday morning. Friday
evening the furnace kicked the breaker. We reset the breaker and it
worked for one cycle - then the blower failed to run and the furnace
shut down again. Yesterday the furnace guy came in and checked a few
things and told him it needed over $2700 in parts - plus labour - to
fix it.

Getting a new furnace Dec 4th.

What he's paid in "service" over the last 16 years would have paid
for the new furnace - - -


Instead of paying double, he should have had a AHS home warranty and he
could have paid triple. They get about $925 a year.

On 11/19/2017 4:42 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/19/2017 3:23 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:

My friend, on the other hand, has continued to have his Lennox
"serviced" every year - the last service being Friday morning. Friday
evening the furnace kicked the breaker. We reset the breaker and it
worked for one cycle - then the blower failed to run and the furnace
shut down again. Yesterday the furnace guy came in and checked a few
things and told him it needed over $2700 in parts - plus labour - to
fix it.

Getting a new furnace Dec 4th.

Â* What he's paid in "service" over the last 16 years would have paid
for the new furnace - - -


Instead of paying double, he should have had a AHS home warranty and he
could have paid triple.Â* They get about $925 a year.




You have to watch some of these service guys. They are instructed by
the company to up-sell parts.

On Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 5:34:33 PM UTC-5, Frank wrote:
On 11/19/2017 4:42 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/19/2017 3:23 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:

My friend, on the other hand, has continued to have his Lennox
"serviced" every year - the last service being Friday morning. Friday
evening the furnace kicked the breaker. We reset the breaker and it
worked for one cycle - then the blower failed to run and the furnace
shut down again. Yesterday the furnace guy came in and checked a few
things and told him it needed over $2700 in parts - plus labour - to
fix it.

Getting a new furnace Dec 4th.

Â* What he's paid in "service" over the last 16 years would have paid
for the new furnace - - -


Instead of paying double, he should have had a AHS home warranty and he
could have paid triple.Â* They get about $925 a year.




You have to watch some of these service guys. They are instructed by
the company to up-sell parts.

You mean that $69 service tune-up might cost more than $69?