I recently bought a house with an older gas furnace (probably 15 years old, nameplates have been mostly painted over). Recently discovered that the blower will no longer start up on its own, and have had the capacitor tested - it tested ok. So... I happen to have a home warranty left over from the purchase and I called to have the furnace repaired (it is covered under the warranty). Unfortunately, I have no say in the technician/company who services my furnace - it is chosen by
the warranty company for me. The guy comes out, my wife is there to let him in, I showed up from work about 10 minutes later. When I got there, he was in the process of trying a new capacitor (didn't work) and then decided that the blower motor needs replacement. I took the opportunity to mention that I had seen a lot of LARGE rust flakes piled
on top of the burners (almost to the point of completely covering several of the burners). I asked did he check the heat exchanger for holes? He replied that he hadn't seen any holes in it but that he would check for CO coming from the upstairs registers once the new blower motor was installed. He also mentioned that the burner chamber needed to be cleaned out and that wasn't covered by the warranty, nor was it included in his or his company's job duties. I later asked my wife how he inspected the heat exchanger (ie. did he use a camera, mirror, what?). She replied that he didn't do anything more than what I had seen him do when I got there (nothing). We will be called once the motor is ordered and received to schedule the next appointment. This is not an emergency for us, since we're currently living elsewhere while we do some rennovating.
So, I'm thinking, though I don't have any inspection mirrors or cameras, those large (when I say large, I'm thinking they look to be a few inches across and about 1/8" or thicker) flakes of rust coupled with the fact that someone has done a less-than-classy installation of an A/C coil in the plenum above the furnace means I have problems. Anyone have any ideas here? I don't want this thing to "pass" some half-a$$ed test by bubba the technician only to fail later on after my warranty has expired.
also - appologies to any ruffled feathers/offended HVAC folks who might not have appreciated my posting to "their" special group. I didn't realize it was a "He-Man-Homeowner-Haters" club for professionals only.