I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has a gas furnace.
I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.
Thanks.
I've always owned homes with oil furnaces. My condo (8 years old) has a gas furnace.
I was wondering what a typical cost of an annual service should be and typically what I can expect to be cleaned, replaced, etc.
Thanks.
Annual service on a gas furnace? Just say no. It doesn't need annual service. Every 5 years if you like to waste money. Natural gas makes so little soot there is nothing to clean. You might flush the hot water circuits if you have hot water. Every 5 to 10 years for that.
A forced air system needs the filters changed. Something you should really do yourself.
+1
I've had gas furnaces for 30 years. Never had a service call. But then I do a quick inspection myself when starting it each season to make sure it looks good, that the flames are even, blue, etc. Like you say, no soot to clean, no nozzles to clog. If you don't self inspect, then like you say, having a service call once every 5 years or so is probably a good thing. And change the filters as needed.
On Sat, 18 Nov 2017 16:48:31 -0000, Dan Espen wrot= e:
Agreed - I have a gas furnace (boiler as I'm in the UK). It was here wh= en I moved in 17 years ago. No servicing, ever. It's failed ONCE. The= thermocouple (the thing that senses the pilot light has gone out) faile= d. I replaced it myself at a cost of =A37 and 10 minutes of my time. W= hy should I pay =A3150 a year for a service which achieves nothing? In =
17 years that would have paid for 5 new boilers!-- =
Love conquers all, except in tennis.
replying to ArghArgh, Iggy wrote: Dan Epsen is entirely correct and you should use high performance air filters rated (there's a maximum MERV rating) for your system, to keep the system and any supply ductwork as new and clean as possible. Meaning, you absolutely MUST have a singular service call now, they'll do the Water Heater too. You don't know what you don't know.
Maybe, ductwork or exhaust flue piping was done wrong or is loose and leaking. Maybe, you have a water system and dielectric unions are missing. Maybe, your gas valve's wide open instead of correctly turned-down for maximum efficiency. Maybe, your exhaust draft is weak. Maybe, you have Air Conditioning and the coil's dirty and reducing system performance. Etcetera.
As others have said - an annual service call might be overkill. I'm on the dirtier propane gas and go for 2 - 3 year service. So far it's mainly labour - ~ $ 150. - 200. I'm in a rural area requiring ~ an hour of driving + working time. : inspect furnace, vent, blower : clean around burner and check flame : check & clean condensate system - pump & drain line < I wish he'd inspected thermostat batteries - old corroded batteries recently cost me a new one $ 120. >
If the furnace is working OK - the "consumables" are simple - - just the filter ! Do-It-Yourself - mine are 20x20x1 - I get them on sale for ~ 5 bucks and stock up & replace them at 6 weeks. Another preventative maintenance item might be the blower belt - - every 10 - 15 years , maybe $ 20. Do NOT try to squeeze another year out-of cracked & frazzled 15 year old $ 20. belt ! John T.
If you have a gas pilot light, (as opposed to newer electric spark type "pilot"), then having a spare thermocouple on-hand is a good practice. They do fail relatively often (5-10 years ISTM) and furnace will not fire up without a working thermocouple. They fail with no warning, and invariably on the coldest days ;-)
Also, familiarize yourself with the process of re-lighting a gas pilot if it should happen to blow out , due to high wind downdraft, or gas line shutoff for any reason.
If your blower motor can be oiled you should oil the front and rear bearings 2X a year. My Trane FCU works fine after 25+ years.
Why? I can get one on Ebay within a few days.
17 for me.
Not a problem. Cold won't kill me, and of course an electric heater is = always possible, just more expensive to run long term, which 3 days isn'= t.
Nah, I just follow the instructions written inside the cover.
-- =
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
The lowest temperature recorded in England was in Shropshire in 1982. Minus 26.1 Centigrade. That's about 15 below F. Minnesota people probably wear T shirts on those days. There might be issues with pipes freezing and such if the regular furnace is replaced with a few space heaters. That said, Ace Hardware carries thermocouples. It isn't that hard to get one.
I didn't see Dan saying he MUST have a service call right now.
and you should use high performance air filters
That's great if the system has a MERV filter add-on filter housing. If not, you can't shove a high perf filter into a furnace that only holds the typical 1" filter. And then many systems today use electrostatic filters that have no filters to replace.
replying to trader_4, Iggy wrote: I expounded on Dan's broad and very limited statement, you may notice the word "and" was used. If you buy a house without an Inspection, you're a fool and if you use anything in that house without an Inspection or fine-tuning or cleaning or lubricating or bleeding or emptying you're twice the fool.
And yes, there are High Performance a.k.a. Ultra Allergen 1" filters from a number of companies. I've been using them for over a decade and they do extremely well and just as well as longer-life multi-inch filters. You just need to be aware of the system's MERV capacity, so you don't overdo it too much and start losing efficiency.
Duh.
Interesting that this topic just came up, because my gas furnace has just started acting up a bit.
It's a Burnham 205b, installed in 1988. It's always run fine, never a problem, till this season. The house has old cast iron radiators. Here's the furnace:
It still heats, circulates the water, and does what's expected. However... it's recently started discharging water from [what I believe is] the "pressure relief valve" (has a downtube running towards the floor). Here's the valve:
The valve doesn't seem to leak (valve itself and the connections around it). I can lift the valve's lever and open it, water runs out, then let the lever go, water flow stops, as it should.
But when the furnace runs, at some point it will discharge between a quart and a gallon. I can keep a bucket under it and empty it, but it never behaved like this before.
One other thing I've noticed (from some discharge that ended up on the floor before I realized what was going on), is that when the water evaporates, white residue (calcium?) is left behind:
I'm wondering if the innards of the water/heating area have become clogged up with scale and sediment over the last 30 years? (the same way a water heater can get clogged)
If that's the case, I'm wondering if 30 years is about all I'm going to get from it?
replying to J.Albert, Iggy wrote: I'm not an HVAC tech, but no, the system is closed so it should still be pretty much new inside of everything...so I wouldn't suspect and haven't ever run into a build-up issue. What I suspect the problem to be, is with your Expansion Tank. Either the tank's failed or it lost pressure and is no longer functioning.
Put a manual tire pump on the Expansion Tank's Schrader Valve and pump it up to just 7psi. It'll either hold and you fixed the problem or the air will bleed back out through the Hy-Vent and the problem will persist until the Expansion Tank's replaced. And yes, 30-years is a boiler's "average" lifespan, some last less and others go a whole lot longer.
On Friday, November 17, 2017 at 11:09:43 AM UTC-5, micky wrote: > Visiting my brother who has an LG refrigerator, LFC22740ST. > > When I pull out the freezer drawer and then the ice tray, ice cubes get > knocked off the pile into the main drawer I think, and worse, behind the > drawer and then onto the floor. Up to 6 pieces of ice end up on t he > floor each time, and I have to pick each one up. >
This is side-by-side with the freezer in a drawer at the bottom. So no water in the door.
I can't find a swtich to turn the icemaker off.
Obviously you keep the pipes warm, and they should be lagged anyway. Are you saying your furnace runs continuously?
For the first couple years I had a gas furnace i paid (through the nose) to have the furnace "serviced" and it still failed on one of the coldest nights of the year - on Dec 23. It needed a new blower motor.
I went out and found a replacement myself and have not paid for a furnace "service" since. When the furnace was 30 yhears old I had it replaced so I would not, theoretically, need to call a furnace repairman for a non-working furnace. I hace "serviced" it myself ever since - including 2 "repairs".
My friend, on the other hand, has continued to have his Lennox "serviced" every year - the last service being Friday morning. Friday evening the furnace kicked the breaker. We reset the breaker and it worked for one cycle - then the blower failed to run and the furnace shut down again. Yesterday the furnace guy came in and checked a few things and told him it needed over $2700 in parts - plus labour - to fix it.
Getting a new furnace Dec 4th.
What he's paid in "service" over the last 16 years would have paid for the new furnace - - -
Instead of paying double, he should have had a AHS home warranty and he could have paid triple. They get about $925 a year.
You have to watch some of these service guys. They are instructed by the company to up-sell parts.
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