Furnace overheating

We've had the technician out twice, and still no answer. We have a 4 year old two stage high efficiency furnace and it keeps overheating as soon as it hits the high-heat stage...so every 10 minutes since Winter started. Then it will cool down and restart the cycle, repeat in 10 minutes. The technicians are blaming poor returns and won't do anything unless that's fixed, but we think it's something else. The returns were poorly designed and we've been doing some construction that did change them slightly but not much. We get the 4 flash code when we first turn on the furnace and every time it overheats....however it didn't used to give us the 4 flash code, just when I switched out the filter and then in the last week....before it would just restart the cycle without the code. We've cleaned filters and the blower, and checked the limit switch. All are functioning. We're thinking it could be the circuit board...not sure what else it could be...

Reply to
jb
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What make and model of furnace. Gas, oil, or charcoal. What are the 4 flash codes it gives, for gosh sakes. What does the furnace company say they mean, complete and word-for-word, because people here shouldn't have to look it up. Do you really want the furnace fixed or is this stuff secret? Get clearance from your handler and post it if you want help.

Reply to
micky

It will go out on high limit if not enough air flow. One way to check it to disconnect the return air so there are no restrictions on the return plenum. Can't see it so it may be a two minute job to take out some screws or could be an hour or more.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Usually you can just take off the blower door and tape over the door switch to do that test. Also, it's very easy to find out if it's really overheating or not. Just drill a small hole in the hot air ductwork near the furnace and insert a kitchen thermometer to measure the temperature. Presumably the techs already did that. Look up the install manual for the furnace online, it should have the max allowed. Could Google for it for furnaces in general if needed. Also when drilling the hole, make sure to avoid the hot air plenum if it has AC, that's where the coils are.

Reply to
trader_4

Certainly if it's broken they should have done this, but you remind me and I'm taking this opportunity to complain about the guys I hired. When I first got here, I'd ask the heating oil company to maintain my furnace and I'd see the guy drill or untape that hole and stick some high-tech gauge in it to measure combustion efficiency or CO2 or CO or something. But after a couple years, the guy, a different guy or the next different guy, would just look at the flame and decide that the color was right. Or maybe he didn't even do that.

That, and the time they replaced my blower motor when it was only the blower blade that was bad, and I started doing all my own furnace maintenance, including vacuuming the flu. (Had to buy a bigger shop-vac for that, because they didn't make soot filters for the little one) I hope I don't live to regret this for some reason.

Reply to
micky

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