Not-new gas furnace

16 years ago

One story house, crawl space. Armstrong horizontal nat. gas furnace with standing pilot. Supply registers in the floor of the house. For the second year in a row, the aluminum pilot supply tubing is leaking at the compression fitting at the bottom of the pilot assembly. Results in pilot flame at two places. It was tightened last year by service person from licensed contractor. Do these tend to loosen spontaneously? Suggestions? Another problem is the air filter in the return. The filter is in the unit just in front of the direct-drive squirrel cage blower. In the crawl space, naturally. Filter 20x20, the holder will accommodate a filter 2" thick. Access is by removing two non-captured screws, inconvenient to say the least. So to use one filter at 1" or use two of the 1" units in the holder? Filters 2" thick are unknown at my sources. In the house, the single return duct is mounted vertically between two closets, fully enclosed in drywall. The duct then runs horizontally at the ceiling over one of the closets to provide openings on three surfaces. The return is through 3 grilles placed near the ceiling. Two of the grilles have opening of 7 1/2 x 13 and the other has opening of 7 x 18 1/2. The larger grille faces the hallway, one of the smaller grilles in in a bedroom, the other smaller grille is in the living room, open to the hallway. Disregarding the louvers, this is 324.5 square inches. It would be wonderful to have a filter that is accessible without tools or crawling. Suggestions? Finally, the wood floors were fitted very poorly to the register boots. Big gaps, far too large for typical duct sealants. In one case, an inch or more. I am considering making a wooden form for inside of the register boot to maintain proper size and shape, and fill the gaps outside with Bondo. Then use the sealants as necessary. Suggestions? Comments?

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (2)

Tinmantu
16 years ago
Sometimes I come across pilot fittings that no matter how tight you get them, it's time to replace the ferrule or breakaway fitting. If there is enough excess aluminum tubing, I'll use the old...if not, I have a roll on my van and replace it...material wise, it is cheap.. Some furnaces the burner assy. has to be pulled to do it, so labor can take an hour or so.

As far as the filter goes, any local hvac shop should be able to order you a case of the 2 inch size filters. We sell the fiberglass 2 inch for around 3.00 to walk in customers. With the size of returns you have, filter grilles would be hard to adapt to, short of eliminating them and going to a single central return. You would lose room comfort when the doors are shut going that way. It's just one of the drawbacks of having an attic system. Sometimes it's the only place it can go and someone has to do the crawl. Leave the tools you need to access at the furnace.
jca1
16 years ago
in my experience the temperature changes between the brass and aluminum somehow cause the pilot to leak a little at the assembly but never the control, and not on all furnaces. The best way I have found to really tighten one is with a flare nut wrench that will not deform the brass nut, this lets you get it really tight. Sometimes you can find a small amount of corrosion on the pilot orifice( where the ferrule seats)that hampers the seal between the two, cleaning the orifice will help in this case, and sometimes that can be a real job, those things can really get stuck in the pilot head over time.
Related Discussions
New Gas Furnace and Coil
Q
Comments (2)
I doubt they damaged it. Don't see how they could other than running a screwdriver into a coil or tube. Often older valves leak if closed and reopened. Not their fault your old valve leaked. This happened to us once when we removed and reinstalled an improperly installed coil above a new furnace. The judge ruled in our favor. The coil is part of the cooling system not the furnace. Why was it changed? Is it a match to the outdoor unit?
...See More
new gas furnace
Q
Comments (0)
I've been quoted on Burnham 206 twice and Slant Fin BobCat once. What should I be looking at and are there better choices? 1200 sq ft. 2 floors, 3 zones. Slant Fin baseboard. NY/LI area. Currently a Slant Fin from the 70's or thereabouts. Also quoted on indirect dhw.
...See More
New GAS Furnace Options
Q
Comments (1)
If you have not already used the energy home improvement tax credit, there are still some tax credits available for hvac replacements. If you can use it, then verify that your system will qualify. You should ask the dealer for the AHRI # of the system matchup, and then verify that on the AHRI website. Also, often some utilities offer particular credits or rate reductions for systems that meet particular efficiencies. So you may want to check with your gas and electric companies about that, and again make sure what you get will apply. It is the efficiency of the matchup of the outdoor unit, indoor unit, and coil that gives the overall system efficiency and AHRI number. Also some furnaces and coils have their own matchups. For more info see the heating and ac forums.
...See More
arzel air boss zones and new gas furnace/ac
Q
Comments (1)
I really have never seen a Arzel zone system. I visited their website to get a better understanding of this. They use a medical grade pump to provide air or I suppose the lack there of to open or close the damper of the zone(s) in question. It sounds like this system is more for systems with hard access to one degree or another or odd type duct system because the dampers look odd to me, but I question the mentality of this because you still have to install the damper and run tubing to it to control it from the zone panel or where ever this medical grade pump is at. Arzel claims that mechanical dampers are noisy? I have never seen a noisy damper... they open they close. It may be more cost effective to control a damper pneumatically over long period time. I don't know how long a medical grade air pump could last that would be the cost effective question you would need the answer to. I believe Arzel uses springs to close the dampers. So the pump only activates on a call. Wireless dampers: I do believe they exist but probably require specialized control for operation. Meaning proprietary, the dampers won't work with just any control... so if they break down you may only have one option. It's more common to use a powered damper, meaning electricity powered typically using control voltage. There are various powered dampers, some of better quality, some that are junk... so the field is wide open. Typically powered dampers will work with just about any zoning control system that is designed to work with control voltage type dampers. Obviously the better the quality of damper, the less your problems will be provided that the system is well designed and installed. The only reason wireless dampers exist in my opinion is ease of installation. But they can have intermittent problems that develop causing dampers to stop working because of lost signals or other problems. For that reason I would install a wired damper system. If wireless is used for thermostat control for various areas of the structure that is an entirely different situation. The thermostat is wireless sending information to the control board via wireless means because the location in which the thermostat must be placed is not practical to run wires. While this can be problematic, I think it is less problematic than that of having a entire damper system that is run wirelessly. There really should be no reason not to have a wired damper system. If access is that tight how are you going to install the damper? Wires to control the damper are small.
...See More

Not-new gas furnace

Comments (2)

Tinmantu

jca1

Related Discussions

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US