My 17-year-old Carrier furnace has a cracked heat exchanger. I have received three different quotes that I would like advice on please.
My house: built in 1989, under 1700 sq. ft., rancher on slab, vaulted ceiling in great room with two skylights, three bedrooms, 75,000 btu gas furnace in attic
quotes:
- Amana AMS8 70,000 btu 80%, warranty 20, 5, 2 $3349 (the guy who came on the service call)
- Lennox G40 70,000 btu 80%, replacement 2.5 ton evaporator coil, same warranty, $3300
- York Choice or Trane XB, 20,5,1 warranty, $2400 or with replacement 3 ton coil $3500
Not a 17 year old Carrier Furnace in an attic. If you google life expectancy of a gas furnace it is about 18 years.
It couldn't hurt to get a second opinion. Did the tech show you how he proved a cracked heat exchanger.
According to MSN.com, Consumer Reports, and some realestate report state that investment in your heating system should give you a 95-100% payback on your investment.
He shined a light into the the right side heating chamber and I could see a hole and light through it in the seam at the end of it and plenty of rust covering up the burner. The other two chambers were good. Another guy told me a few years ago it was on the edge and wouldn't last much longer.
If you can see a hole in the heat exchanger large enough for light to shine through you should be having constant nausea, vomitting and maybe even a death in the family from carbon monoxide poisoning by now. If your sense of smell is normal you should be able to smell burnt gases whenever your furnace fires up (1).
The same assessment of cracked tubes from three contractors and not having at least one insisiting that you have it fixed immediately is professional negligence. He likely has a professional obligation to inform the gas company if you refuse to act on a potentially fatal problem with your furnace. My argument is based on the fact that if a civil engineer (a brother in law) is asked to sign off on a structure that in his professional opinion is incorrectly designed and will collapse and kill someone he has to refuse that commission and report that to his professional body.
Skip the lawer part of it. Get that gas company to make that free inspection. The gas company really does have a stake in your safety and will never lie to you.
That said the heat exchanger is like a radiator that has spaces (aka holes) in between the tubes so that the burnt gasses can pass through them to the stack. Natural gas has a max temp of 2148°C which is why the fan has to be on first to keep the tubes within operating temperatures. If the thermocouple interlock senses overheating it will shut down the burners. At that temperature plain cast iron is the best material as any alloy or alloy coating will be burnt off. Constantly heated cast iron looks rough and "rusty"
(1) Excerpts from Wikipedia:
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any form, a minute amount of odorant such as t-butyl mercaptan, with a rotting-cabbage-like smell, is added to the otherwise colorless and odorless gas, so that leaks can be detected before a fire or explosion occurs. Sometimes a related compound, thiophane is used, with a rotten-egg smell. Adding odorant to natural gas began in the United States after the 1937 New London School explosion. The buildup of gas in the school went unnoticed, killing three hundred students and faculty when it ignited. Odorants are considered non-toxic in the extremely low concentrations occurring in natural gas delivered to the end user..
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monoxide poisoning occurs after the inhalation of carbon monoxide gas. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a product of combustion of organic matter under conditions of restricted oxygen supply, which prevents complete oxidation to carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and non-irritating, making it difficult for people to detect.
Carbon monoxide is a significantly toxic gas with poisoning being the most common type of fatal poisoning in many countries. Symptoms of mild poisoning include headaches and flu-like effects, larger exposures can lead to significant toxicity on the central nervous system and the heart. Following poisoning often long term sequelae occurs. Carbon monoxide can also have severe effects on the fetus of pregnant woman.
The mechanisms by which carbon monoxide produces toxic effects are not yet fully understood but hemoglobin, myoglobin, and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase are thought to be compromised. Treatment largely consists of administering 100% oxygen or hyperbaric oxygen therapy, although the optimum treatment remains controversial. Domestic carbon monoxide poisoning can be prevented by the use of household carbon monoxide detectors.
The OP is no doubt concerned if the gas company inspects and finds it bad they will shut off his heat. yet if its really as bad as he says, he should be very ill or dead.
the OP should rush out today and buy a carbon monoxide detector with a digital readout. 50 bucks!
If its zero or real low after a few days call the gas company and confirm the furnace is fine. DONT hsave to worry about a red tag, it just confirms what you will ALREADY KNOW!
Then get even!
Call the comany the dealer sells carrier etc and complain, call the BBB and media!
THAT CONTRACTOR IS RIPPING PEOPLE OFF, do all the people of your town a favor and literally put him out of business!
If there is a hole or crack in the heat exchanger, anyone servicing the unit has an obligation to turn the gas off, red tag it, and document it with the owner's signature on it. If that is not done, and later when there is a fire or CO problem, guess who will be held responsible. Does the Amana estimate include the evaporator coil? If not, it is nearly $1000 more that the Trane. Amana IMO makes a good furnace, but it is really pretty much a Goodman. Assuming the same quality of instalation, I would expect it to be somewhat less than a Trane, not $1k more. Whether to go with 80% or 90% all depends on where you are located. I am in S.Tx and there are probably not a dozen 90's here. Up north, a 90 would be the only thing to conside. As always. the installation is the most important part of the equation. Make sure the installer pulls a permit and gets all the proper inspections done. This is important in any situation, but with you planning on selling the house relatively soon, it will almost certainly bite you in the butt if you don't. Larry
Not true. Does a gas range going full blast in the kitchen, where
100% of the byproducts are goimg into the air, make you sick? A furnace with a hole in the heat exchanger won't always, or even usually result in sufficient CO to cause symptoms. It's still dangerous though, because if the furnace is not producing complete combustion for some reason, then it can kill you.
If your sense of smell is normal you should be able to smell
That's not a reliable indicator either, or else people wouldn't die from furnaces or water heaters with blocked chimneys.
Professional negligence? The contractor did tell him to replace it, he's got 3 quotes, and he's in the process of doing it.
He likely has a professional obligation to
Geez, who's refusing to act? Is the homeowner just supposed to say OK on the spot, all I need is for the tech to say its bad and tell me your price? Now, let me bend over so you can do the job right this minute?
My argument is based on the fact that if a
The technician isn't signing off on the furnace being OK. Quite the opposite, he told him it has a failed heat exchanger and needs to be replaced.
And what does that have to do with his current problem?
The mercaptan is added so as to be able to detect a gas leak, not CO from a cracked heat exchanger.
Notice the part about CO forming under conditions of restricted O2 supply?
The guy said the tech showed him the hole with a light shining through it. He has gotten 3 quotes for replacement. I don't see why everyone here wants to jump to the conclusion that all service people are rip off artists and liars. The guy has 3 quotes already. And I wouldn't assume the gas company is so pure either. My gas company also does servicing, sells equipment and offers service contracts. So in many cases they have the same profit motive as your local heating/cooling guy. But they do have one advantage. When they inspect it, they will shut it off and red tag it and force a crisis right then and there.
My advice check with detector FIRST then have gas company inspect if it doesnt generate monoxide. cost little can save thousands for 50 bucks and a detector is a good thing to own, even a brand nbew furnace can malfunction........
Incdenly stoves etc DO, but since there a much lower BTU its not enough to be dangerous in most situations.
The gas company came this morning and confirmed the problem. He walked in with his detector and it was beeping. He went to the furnace and took some readings up there and the detector he used for that has an LCD display that read 5. He also turned off the emergency switch and said not to turn it back on. I showed him my quotes and he was satisfied that I was acting to correct the problem. He told me to get out my space heaters and use them.
I called one of the contractors and they are coming by today with extra space heaters and to take measurements. This contractor is reputable, has been around our area for a long time and has been recommended to me by co-workers in the past. I have no reason to doubt my furnace is bad now, it's just more an issue of getting my family comfortable soon.
I have friends, still alive, who had furnace with cracked heat exchanger. Kids had had headaches, house plants died, adults no problem. We went to visit, with our children. On entering the house, my eyes began to burn badly. Nobody else from my family with any symptoms. We discussed my burning eyes a great deal, trying to figure out what was going on .. mold, dust, etc. I mentioned it to the maintenance supv. at work the next day and he knew immediately that the problem was a cracked heat exchanger. Not having a clue what that was, I called my pal and told her. She had the gas co. check, and was ordered out of the house immediately because CO was sky high.
I wouldn't fool around with prices if the situation is really a cracked heat exchanger, which is deadly.
I'd have to say, whoever this contractor is, that's probably the furnace I'd buy. I've been getting estimates for about a year now, and asking advice everywhere I can regarding brands, etc., and the most consistent advice I've received is to choose the replacement based on the contractor. The consensus seems to be that getting it installed right and having solid servicing available for if/when there is a problem should be the deciding factors.
By the way, cracked heat exchanger does not necessarily = leaking CO. It is possible for there to be a crack that is not split apart, i.e., problem waiting to happen, but not a problem currently. I've even had one of the inspectors/estimators tell me it's not unusual to see that in relatively new units. Yes, I'm using detectors throughout the house, yes they are the kind that display the history and aren't battery-dependent, and yes, each and every one of them reads zero all the time.
The key to whether you get CO is most directly related to whether the appliance is burning correctly or not. It's true that a correctly burning furnace is still going to put out more CO than a kitchen oven and range, but that isn't how people usually get killed. They get killed because the device is not burning correctly, which results in CO production increasing by a couple orders of magnitude, which is far more than the diff in normal CO level from kitchen appliances as compared to a furnace. Surely you've seen portable high BTU kerosene or gas heaters used to heat buildings during construction, etc. They don't kill anyone, if used correctly.
If a technician can shine a light into a heatexchanger and you can see light through teh other side, the heatexchanger is breached. According to most reputable gas furnace associations this furnace should be replaced. The heatexchanger should be a continuous seal from the breach to the exhaust. You citing the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning and the odorant added to NG are irrelevant for this matter and quite dangerous to insist that a breached heat exchanger be ignored. The advice you are giving is actually quite dangerous.
If there is a breach in the heat exchanger what makes you think it is automatically going to produce enough CO in to the home. How do you know the furnace is even producing that much CO. If you wait for a normal CO detector to go off it is usually to late anyway, unless you invest the money in a low level CO detector. On that Carrier unit the problem that usually occurs is rollout rather than air stream breaches.
The odorant from the NG would only be evident if there is a gas leak, the effects you are describing from CO poisoning will occur when you are close to death. The only smells you may realize from the improper combustion and leakage into the home is slight aldehyde odor.
If I saw a hole in that heatexchanger like that the furnace would be redtagged. How much experience do you have with cracke dor holes in a heatexchanger, how many have you seen, how many have you diagnosed, how many have you let go and convinced a homeowner to ignore. You are dangerous and have no right advising on the subject, especially with the Wikepedia mumbojumbo you are quoting, it is irrelevento this gentlemans dillema.
By the way I am a HVAC contractor, I rarely find heat exchangers in this condition, because it is not usually let gone this long. This gentleman had a contractor warn him of this beginning to happen, and another found it to be true the following year. Do you realize the effects of installing a gas furance in an unconditioned attic.
I have no finanacial gain or loss on this person so my post is purely proffesional.
Bob Pietrangelo snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net (home) snipped-for-privacy@comfort-solution.biz (work)
My advice check with detector FIRST then have gas company inspect if it doesnt generate monoxide. cost little can save thousands for 50 bucks and a detector is a good thing to own, even a brand nbew furnace can malfunction........
Incdenly stoves etc DO, but since there a much lower BTU its not enough to be dangerous in most situations.
*** Contractor rippoffs are very rare actually, unfortunately they make better news than good contractors. If you deal with a good contractor with high credentials, a satisfactory rating with the BBB, recommended by manufacturers as tops in there area, you usually can't go wrong. Don't go by the big ads in the YP.
Since you are stating that Contractors rip offs are common, what percentage of contractors work are ripoffs. I am sure you are stating facts rather than your own opinion. Again ther are alot more good honest contractors than bad. The bad ones are the ones that most people complement on being fair priced and the ones to deal with, rather than those overpriced ripoff companies. Ther is a reason better companies cost more. Which I have stated in an earlier post.
I have, and friends have been victims of sleezy contractors, I know one myself they ffered a really good deal on a used furnace with air, then explained they scared the previos owner into a complete 10 grand install, making fantastic bucks. Were selling the left over furnace for added profit.
I had gone to high school with this #@$%$ told him off! and never call me again! He was proud of scamming a elderly widow:(
within a year he got caught, last I heard he moved west, his business died, he DESERVED IT!
I told him I though 60 minutes should feature him:)
Sadly I check 3 times when told stuff like this because of people like him. A old ladys air quit working, the contractor claimed the compressor bad, I happened to stop and found the air filter jammed solid with cat hair, removed filter temp dropped immediately I went and bought filter. But first called contractor cancelling install! They were unhappy the new unit was loaded on their truck, they had crew ready, threatened to bill a grand cancel fee.
I said GO AHEAD will call my newspaper friend, you will be featured for ripping people off, AC fixed new filter installed!
Thew old lady was in heart failure and died within a couple months, preying on the elderly is TERRIBLE.
I would have turned in that contractor but the poor sick lady was afraid of being sued or worse...........
I have, and friends have been victims of sleezy contractors, I know one myself they ffered a really good deal on a used furnace with air, then explained they scared the previos owner into a complete 10 grand install, making fantastic bucks. Were selling the left over furnace for added profit.
I had gone to high school with this #@$%$ told him off! and never call me again! He was proud of scamming a elderly widow:(
within a year he got caught, last I heard he moved west, his business died, he DESERVED IT!
I told him I though 60 minutes should feature him:)
Sadly I check 3 times when told stuff like this because of people like him. A old ladys air quit working, the contractor claimed the compressor bad, I happened to stop and found the air filter jammed solid with cat hair, removed filter temp dropped immediately I went and bought filter. But first called contractor cancelling install! They were unhappy the new unit was loaded on their truck, they had crew ready, threatened to bill a grand cancel fee.
I said GO AHEAD will call my newspaper friend, you will be featured for ripping people off, AC fixed new filter installed!
Thew old lady was in heart failure and died within a couple months, preying on the elderly is TERRIBLE.
I would have turned in that contractor but the poor sick lady was afraid of being sued or worse...........
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