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

Reply to
Peter Wells
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We have a gas furnace that intermittently, 20% of time, starts with a loud boom, it seems the main burner doesn't always catch light from the pilot so some gas builds up then there's a boom. The furnace is regularly serviced and the service people have been told of the problem, they always dismantle the burner and reassemble it but the problem remains. Aside from this the furnace works fine.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Peter

Reply to
Peter Wells

Call a differant sevice company! Other than that, more information posted here may help. Brand, model of furnace, LP, natural gas? Greg

Reply to
Greg O

Reply to
NoSpamFANatic

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

Reply to
Paul Franklin

This is Turtle.

Well Peter , You have 1 of 4 things wrong with it and a good service company will or should be able to fix this in just a few minutes. Here is the list.

1] You have a dirty burner ignitor bar , the burners theirself , that run the flame to the other burners from the pilot lite. So burners just dirty inside them.

2] The Pilot Lite if not high enough or aimed in wrong direction.

3] The burners are not straight in the furnce holes as to the gas jet in the center of the air fuel intake if the burners or the Ignitor bars are tilted not in line.

4] The gas pressure is set too high and the last burner has time to put out too much gas before the burner ignitor bar flames have time to get to that burner.

Any good tech i have every known could stop a booming of a furnace everytime. SO you need to get another service company that has good tech that know how to tune a furnace up to not Boom. Booming furnaces are a very easy thing to fix if you know what your doing. If you don't know what your doing they are a very hard thing to fix.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

This is Turtle.

No Spam , Booming furnaces does not say bad heat exchanger. A Boomer say bad ignition problem.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

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

Reply to
Bubba

if you have nothing useful to say, at least have something funny to say...

randy

Reply to
xrongor

Yeah, sounds like YOU tried to fix it!

Pop

Reply to
Pop

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

Reply to
Roby

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

Reply to
Bubba

Have any of them cleaned the pilot light oriface? My furnace did the same thing this fall. There was nothing obviously wrong and after the

2nd or 3rd 'hard start' I was about to call a pro when I decided the pilot flame looked a bit anemic. I cleaned a little crud out of the pilot burner, after which the flame looked healthier, and no more booms.

Roger Grady snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.qlfit.net To reply by email, remove "qlfit." from address

Reply to
Roger Grady

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.

Reply to
Peter Wells

And the lesson to be learned here is...you could have done this and should do such an inspection and cleaning every fall 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...

Reply to
Duane Bozarth

SHUT THIS FURNACE OFF IMMEDIATELY

Your house may explode at any moment, and be aware that gas explosions often can cause entire neighborhoods to blow up. Your life is in severe danger, as well as the rest of your family and your neighbors. You are living in the midst of complete anhilation. As soon as you shut the furnace off, call 911 and have the fire department come and remove that deadly furnace from your home, and inspect for fire within the walls.

With this completed, get a new furnace and have it installed by a certified heating company, such as our company.

JDR Plumbing & Heating Co. inc.

Reply to
heating_professional

Duane...

Please read the orig> >

Reply to
Peter Wells

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.

Reply to
Duane Bozarth

Duane,

Sorry if I appear a little punchy, too much coffee early > >

Reply to
Peter Wells

I'd demand a refund from the first if all the other did was what was discussed here...that's inexcusable imo.

Reply to
Duane Bozarth

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