Furnace venting fan

[GaryM]

I live in new construction about 2 years old. The house does not have a root vent for the oil furnace -- the builder elected to install an electric blower that comes on a minute before the furnace fires and stays on for about 5 minutes after the furnaces stops.

Not to put too fine a point on it, these things are the curse of the earth. They kill all the grass in an 8 sq ft area. I put crushed stone under the vent and it goes rusty and black from the fumes.

But the main problem is are noisy as hell on that side of the house and it wake us up during the night quite a few times. Had I known this before the house was built I would have spent significant $ to either have a roof vent installed, or a chimney even.

I include the for future googlers' benefit.

My question to the group is: Are there are quiet/quieter models of these vents in folks' experience?

Thanks in advance,

Gary

[Dr. Hardcrab]

There are, but it mainly depends on how they are installed. We install them, but I HATE them just for the reasons you described. Even worse: I got a call from a new customer whose A/C stopped working. Someone had install the exhaust vent (of a power venter) right near the A/C condensing unit. The A/C was only 2 years old and it looked like 100. Everything blackened, coil was actually "flakey", all of the spade terminals on the contactor and capacitor were corroded so bad the crumbled in your hand. It was a mess. Not a good idea to install them in a prominent area.

If the furnace is tuned up right, it shouldn't "blacken" anything, but it does have an affect on vegetation. Out of the 3 models we have installed, the one made by Field Controls seems to have the least amount of problems....

[GaryM]

"Dr. Hardcrab" wrote in news:teHhf.13$KZ2.9@trnddc05:

Thanks for the reply. Blacken is the wrong choice of word. Certainly there is no soot. It darkened the stone and also turned it a rusty color. I am sure that a good chemist here could tell me it's the reaction between sulphuric acid and the rock that is causing the rusty color.

I was thinking about boxing the area in and adding more stone in the hopes that the grass will return. I think the wood may not last long though.