I just fixed the furnace for a little old lady who was a customer of me and my friend who passed away a few weeks ago. Mrs X would always call us when she had a problem and she really liked my friend GB. Her furnace quit and I found the circuit board corroded by water from a burst pipe on her water heater. After replacing the board, I powered it up and the fuse on the circuit board blew immediately, DARN! Silly me neglected to look at the wiring in the dimly lit basement and the wiring harness was burned up in places by the flame from the burners which had rolled out. As I was replacing sections of burnt wiring, I discovered that some jerk had bypassed the diaphragm switch connected to the draft inducer housing and it allowed the burners to come on without the inducer running which didn't have a centrifugal safety switch. The control screw up was made worse by the water damaged control board. There would have been no damage because the diaphragm switch was connected directly to the gas valve and the shorted out control board would not have powered on the gas valve. After testing the diaphragm switch and cleaning out the port on the draft inducer housing, I finished repairing the wiring. With a new fuse in place, everything worked as it was supposed to and my little old lady customer has heat again. I know my late friend would never bypass a safety on anything and leave it that way and neither would I. Luckily my customer's grandson was in the basement when the flames came out of the front of the furnace and he was able to turn it off. I'm still wondering what kind of an idiot would bypass an important safety switch and leave it that way? A very nice lady and one of my favorite people could have lost her life along with her great grandchildren. I'm still very angry about what I found and would like to tap dance on the face of the moron who's responsible for a near tragedy. O_o
TDD