Gas furnace starts with a boom!
It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main
burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter |
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 01:37:03 GMT, "Peter Wells"
wrote: It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter As Greg said, try a different service tech. You are getting a build up of gas before the pilot ignites the main flame, and there are several possible causes. I assume you have a standing (always-on) pilot? If not, you may have a problem with your flame safety. In any case, the tech should look for clogged burner holes in the area of the pilot, misadjusted pilot, mispositioned pilot, and excessive draft. In addition to cleaning the burner and orifices, they should remove and clean the pilot assembly, since a partially clogged pilot can reduce the pilot flame size enough to also cause this. But get it fixed, those little explosions are hard on the furnace. HTH, Paul |
"NoSpamFANatic" wrote in message . .. Appears to be the heat exchanger sending warning signs of failure...next is asphyxiation!!! This is Turtle. No Spam , Booming furnaces does not say bad heat exchanger. A Boomer say bad ignition problem. TURTLE |
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 01:37:03 GMT, "Peter Wells"
wrote: It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter Just let it go a while longer. You wont have to worry about you, your family, your home or your lives. Pretty clever way to not pay for proper service. Regularly serviced by who? Bubba |
"Bubba" wrote in message ... On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 01:37:03 GMT, "Peter Wells" wrote: It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter Just let it go a while longer. You wont have to worry about you, your family, your home or your lives. Pretty clever way to not pay for proper service. Regularly serviced by who? Bubba if you have nothing useful to say, at least have something funny to say... randy |
Bubba wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 01:37:03 GMT, "Peter Wells" wrote: It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter Just let it go a while longer. You wont have to worry about you, your family, your home or your lives. Pretty clever way to not pay for proper service. Regularly serviced by who? Bubba Yeah, sounds like YOU tried to fix it! Pop |
Peter Wells wrote:
It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter My furnace did that after I cleaned it. Boom sometimes blew the furnace door off. Got my attention immediately! A metal channel that collected a bit of gas from each burner and led it to the pilot was installed wrong (reversed end for end). If your problem began after somebody was into it, you might have a similar problem. In any case, it needs fixen'. Roby |
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 23:55:32 -0700, "xrongor"
wrote: "Bubba" wrote in message .. . On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 01:37:03 GMT, "Peter Wells" wrote: It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter Just let it go a while longer. You wont have to worry about you, your family, your home or your lives. Pretty clever way to not pay for proper service. Regularly serviced by who? Bubba if you have nothing useful to say, at least have something funny to say... randy Im sorry. Are you my mother? Blow Me randy. There. Now thats funny. Bubba |
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 09:24:35 -0500, "Pop" wrote:
Bubba wrote: On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 01:37:03 GMT, "Peter Wells" wrote: It seems the pilot in our gas furnace doesn't reliably ignite the main burner. The upshot is that sometimes, say 1 in 4, the furnace will start with a real boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and works fine apart from the starting issue, I explain the problem to the tech's and they take the burner out, look at it but don't seem to fix it. Any suggestions. Thanks, Peter Just let it go a while longer. You wont have to worry about you, your family, your home or your lives. Pretty clever way to not pay for proper service. Regularly serviced by who? Bubba Yeah, sounds like YOU tried to fix it! Pop I guess someone squeezed Pop's head and thats all that came out? Nice comeback Pop. Get in line. You're next to blow me. Bubba |
Peter Wells wrote:
Thanks to those who replied constructively, I spoke to a couple of service companies and found one who seemed to agree with the suggestions given here. They came out last night, took the burner apart, cleaned everything (there was a lot of what looked like chips of rust in it) and now it starts without the boom. And the lesson to be learned here is...you could have done this and should do such an inspection and cleaning every fall before you relight it for the season. If you find something you don't understand or something doesn't "look" right, then you can call the service folk... |
Duane...
Please read the original post, the system HAS been regularly serviced and other tech's (reputable companies) have come out specifically to address this problem, the reality is that try as you might it is difficult without knowledge to assess the abilities of those who do this kind of work. Gaining some knowledge before calling a service tech, for which I am grateful to those who gave constructive comments, helps me vet the tech's before they come - that to my mind is the lesson learned. Peter "Duane Bozarth" wrote in message ... Peter Wells wrote: Thanks to those who replied constructively, I spoke to a couple of service companies and found one who seemed to agree with the suggestions given here. They came out last night, took the burner apart, cleaned everything (there was a lot of what looked like chips of rust in it) and now it starts without the boom. And the lesson to be learned here is...you could have done this and should do such an inspection and cleaning every fall before you relight it for the season. If you find something you don't understand or something doesn't "look" right, then you can call the service folk... |
Peter Wells wrote:
Duane... Please read the original post, the system HAS been regularly serviced and other tech's (reputable companies) have come out specifically to address this problem, the reality is that try as you might it is difficult without knowledge to assess the abilities of those who do this kind of work. Gaining some knowledge before calling a service tech, for which I am grateful to those who gave constructive comments, helps me vet the tech's before they come - that to my mind is the lesson learned. Chill, Peter... :) I followed the whole thread. I only put in the $0.02 at the end because the solution was simple and especially now that you know you can do the check first each fall. If you then have a question/concern, you can then call the tech knowing you at least took care of the really obvious. If it came out (or you interpreted it) as being critical, I didn't intend that way, simply that such rust and dirt is an inevitable occurrence w/ any gas furnace from combustion products and condensation and the burner and pilot orifices should be checked each fall prior to lighting and the general crud cleaned out. That any service tech wouldn't do that w/ the information it wasn't lighting reliably is a real indictment of them. |
Duane,
Sorry if I appear a little punchy, too much coffee early in the morning plus the realization that I've paid multiple companies to get what should be a basic piece of work done. Peter "Duane Bozarth" wrote in message ... Peter Wells wrote: Duane... Please read the original post, the system HAS been regularly serviced and other tech's (reputable companies) have come out specifically to address this problem, the reality is that try as you might it is difficult without knowledge to assess the abilities of those who do this kind of work. Gaining some knowledge before calling a service tech, for which I am grateful to those who gave constructive comments, helps me vet the tech's before they come - that to my mind is the lesson learned. Chill, Peter... :) I followed the whole thread. I only put in the $0.02 at the end because the solution was simple and especially now that you know you can do the check first each fall. If you then have a question/concern, you can then call the tech knowing you at least took care of the really obvious. If it came out (or you interpreted it) as being critical, I didn't intend that way, simply that such rust and dirt is an inevitable occurrence w/ any gas furnace from combustion products and condensation and the burner and pilot orifices should be checked each fall prior to lighting and the general crud cleaned out. That any service tech wouldn't do that w/ the information it wasn't lighting reliably is a real indictment of them. |
Peter Wells wrote:
Duane, Sorry if I appear a little punchy, too much coffee early in the morning plus the realization that I've paid multiple companies to get what should be a basic piece of work done. I'd demand a refund from the first if all the other did was what was discussed here...that's inexcusable imo. |
geoman wrote:
Perhaps, but if they didn't even clean a dirty orifice which turned out to be the problem, I'd raise holy heck about having paid a service call. Granted, they should have (and I don't recollect from the thread whether they were or not or whether that inof was provided) been given the opportunity to make it right, but as noted if the initial call was as described, he probably got a kid right out of trade school who just didn't know what he was doing... If the rudimentary things aren't done first, there's no point in looking for more complex problems...in this case, the problem was a dirty/partially plugged pilot orifice... |
"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message ... Peter Wells wrote: Duane, Sorry if I appear a little punchy, too much coffee early in the morning plus the realization that I've paid multiple companies to get what should be a basic piece of work done. I'd demand a refund from the first if all the other did was what was discussed here...that's inexcusable imo. I haven't read all the posts, so If I'm out of line here please forgive me, I erased all the posts off my computer prior to today's. The last statement may be rash. You can't ask the previous companies to refund your money unless they deliberately ripped you off or didn't know what was wrong. Think about it for a moment. A service man/woman comes out and does their best to solve your problems but just can't do it because this is something that is out of the norm. Should he/she not be paid for their time? You can only ask that someone does their best. You took time from their life, and they proved what WASN'T the problem. Sometimes there are no clear directives in a repair, its a trial and error situation. If the customer doesn't like the odds of service then buy a new furnace which makes your odds 100% winner. A good example is you going to a doctor. You expect him to try to find out what is wrong with you and perform every test possible and you don't intend to pay them UNLESS you get cured? There are times when I give customers a break, but before I change an expensive part I ask them first and warn them that it may not be the problem. Intermediate problems can really be troublesome. Like I said, I'm not privy to the entire thread so this post may appear to sound off the wall to the actual topic. Now, a delayed ignition IS one of the hardest problems to solve for any technician! You can do all the tests and then have living or atmospheric conditions change as soon as you leave the site. If the draft is correct, the gas pressure is good, then it most likely is the ignition system, burner wear, transfer bar to light the other burners are plugged or rusted and need replacement, or the exchanger itself has changed somehow with a coating etc that causes the air not to scrub. A spider web in the orifices can create these problems along with a small amount of dust in the burners. Like I said, this is one of the hardest things to fix. I remember working on a Trane furnace that we put in. We did everything to it and then Trane came out with a burner replacement a year later that solved the problem. BUT TRANE NEVER TOLD US or admitted that there was a problem!! How many tech's out there got THEIR reputation harmed because of the factory? Rich Rich |
Gas furnace starts with a boom!
replying to Paul Franklin, Jim wrote:
pffranklin.nospam wrote: As Greg said, try a different service tech. You are getting a build up of gas before the pilot ignites the main flame, and there are several possible causes. I assume you have a standing (always-on) pilot? If not, you may have a problem with your flame safety. In any case, the tech should look for clogged burner holes in the area of the pilot, misadjusted pilot, mispositioned pilot, and excessive draft. In addition to cleaning the burner and orifices, they should remove and clean the pilot assembly, since a partially clogged pilot can reduce the pilot flame size enough to also cause this. But get it fixed, those little explosions are hard on the furnace. HTH, Paul Just Repaired mine. and was this: A misaligned pilot. -- posted from http://www.homeownershub.com/mainten...om-586128-.htm using HomeOwnersHub's Web, RSS and Social Media Interface to home and garden related groups |
Gas furnace starts with a boom!
replying to TURTLE, Sandy wrote:
Will it cause a fire in the home -- for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/mainte...om-586128-.htm |
Gas furnace starts with a boom!
Sandy posted for all of us...
replying to TURTLE, Sandy wrote: Will it cause a fire in the home -- for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/mainte...om-586128-.htm Turtle crawled into his shell about 20 years ago and never came out... -- Tekkie |
Gas furnace starts with a boom!
On Tue, 2 Jan 2018 17:22:28 -0500, Tekkie® wrote:
Sandy posted for all of us... replying to TURTLE, Sandy wrote: Will it cause a fire in the home -- for full context, visit https://www.homeownershub.com/mainte...om-586128-.htm Turtle crawled into his shell about 20 years ago and never came out... Well, the feller at least went out with a boom. |
Gas furnace starts with a boom!
On 1/2/2018 4:44 AM, Sandy wrote:
replying to TURTLE, Sandy wrote: Will it cause a fire in the home Your pilot light jet is partly plugged, or some other problem that causes it not to light the burner quick enough. Is the pilot a really small flame? |
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