Where do I get this part for an oil furnace? Has the furnace died?

[mm]

Where do I get this part for an oil furnace?

In a way, maybe I should wait and see what happens tomorrow, but I am hoping to learn something in advance.

I just noticed or just created a hole in a sheet metal part of my oil furnace, a small box that connects the firebox to the flue. It looks rectangular from the front, top, and bottom, and trapezoidal from the side**, shorter at the front than the back. It is open in the back to connect to the firebox and has a round hole near the front in the top to connect to the flue. (Is there a name for this part?)

The man is already scheduled and coming to clean the furnace late tomorrow morning. Even if he leaves his shop without the part, if his company stocks it, I can go there and get it while he is at his earlier customers. Do they stock things like this? The Carrier oil furnace is 20+ years old. If I give the company the furnace model number, might they have this part in stock? Or do they make one when they need one? Or will I have to find someone to make me one?

Is he going to insist I need a whole new furnace because this one part is crumbling? If he said that, would he be right? I ran it for about 20 minutes last month and it worked fine. The hole appeared today, probably after I pushed on the metal with the shop vac tube.

**I have more exact measurements but it's roughly 5" high near the firebox, 2.5 inches at the front, and 18 inches deep, and 14 inches wide. Plus it has a flange around it that gets screwed to the furnace.

[Stormin Mormon]

A heating and AC wholesale parts house might have it. Or, take a couple digicam photos and take the camera to your big box hardware store. I know one small town hardware that has a lot of heating parts and pieces.

[mm]

I guess I should have thought of that. Thanks.

Do you know if I also need some sort of caulk or gasket to attach this part to the firebox and to the flue? I can't see what's under the flange, but there seems to have been nothing between the other, round flange on this box and the flue.

I think it wore out earlier than it would have because the humidifier overflowed on a few occasions and the top of this got wet.

I told them the problem, and said I was trying to avoid an added call by their tech to see what is wrong, and they've postponed the cleaning.

[hrhofmann]

When there is fire in the chamber, do the exhaust gasses flow thru this pipe on the way to the chimney? If so, you are risking a fire or air poisoning if you don't replace this part. But, if this metal is so thin, what about the entire fire box?????

[mm]

You're right. I absolutely have to replace the part. The oil company guy said that Carrier doesn't have it anymore, so I'm going to call local heating supply stores.

Any other ideas where to look?

It's called the Flue Collector, and connects the firebox to the flue.

It's not sheet metal. It's steel. If I can't buy one, I was thinking that I could get a welder to weld a new layer of steel over the part that is thin. It's open at one end, and I think the other 4 sides are good.

They've removed identical furnaces from here when my townhouse neighbors replace them, but I guess they are crushed and recycled, and don't sit in junk yards.

Good question. I think, and the repair manager at my oil company agreed, that the rust here was accelerated a lot because the humidifier overflowed and dripped water on the top of this part.

Doesn't the furnace cleaning guy warn the customer when the firebox is leaking? I asked last time and he said it was good.

And I've been using a CO detector and it hasn't gone off, and last winter I put cloves in the firebox but didnt' smell anything where the heat came out of the vents.

Thanks.

[Mark]

if its a small hole, like the size of a big nail, do not worry, often there is a hole like this where a technician will place a thermometer probe to measure the exhaust temperature.

If the hole is that small and worries you, get some metal tape to place over the hole or muffler patch etc and seal it.

Mark

[Stormin Mormon]

Don't know. I do very little oil work. Might be an asbestos gasket, but most likely no gasket.

[mm]

I had a hole like that when I bought the house, and someone had screwed a screw into it.

Then after a furnace cleaning, I found a second hole and it did worry me. Thanks for the info. Next time it won't worry me, I had some metal tape and I covered it.

This hole is much bigger, 4 inches. It probably didn't exist until I tried to shopvac the area. I'm going to try some more to get an original replacement somewhere, and then I think I'll get a welding guy to cover it with another layer. Sort of like on the A-team when they take a car and cover it with scraps of metal. Except a much better fit.

For the same momey, maybe I could buy an arc welder and do it myself. Should I?

The pieces are 14"x18", 14x2,14x19, and two trapezoidal pieces about

5x18. Since appearance doesn't mattter, maybe it would be a great beginners project.

I won't need a jig since I can just put on a little glue to hold the pieces to the original.

....although how will an arc welder work if the two pieces to be welded are resting on the same iron or steel box.?

[Stormin Mormon]

You may be able to cut a piece to shape, and atach it with sheet metal screws. Pop rivets (steel) would be good, too. Welding is good, but it may burn up some of the rusty metal, and turn into more work.

[trader4]

Keep in mind that there are substantial tax credits this year that could apply to a new furnace. With a 20+ year old unit, you could get a new higher efficiency one and now might be the time.

[mm]

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, assuming one pays that much in taxes, one can get back up to 1500 dollar for furnaces, 30% of what one actually spends. So at the price he quoted 4500, I could get a tax credit of 1350 dollars.

This opportunity is good until the end of 2010, and the total can only be 1500.

For someone who doesn't make enough money to pay 1350 in taxes, it seems that this credit can't be carried forward, but there are some credits that are unlimited and the unused amount can be carried forward, but I'm not sure if it is one year or until it is used up.

But I don't want to be rushed when I pick out the furnace, and winter is coming. One place told me two weeks from ordering it to finishing it and of course they might be delayed. I should be able to get this welded in a day, and finished an hour or two later. So I'm going out to some welding shops now to see what they can do.

Chris, the problem with screws and poprivets is that the box has to be gas-tight. Or the gases that the draft doesn't suck up will enter my house I'm going to look for hi-temp silicone and see if that would be enough to seal something like that.