furnace help, please
 

my pilot light on the furnace doesn't want to stay on.. i had it off all summer and now i can't get it to stay lit. the flame doesn't reach the thermal switch thingy.. i can make it stay on temporarily by putting a bit of flame to the "switch" itself but the pilot will extinguish a few moments later.. there is also a click right before coming from the gizmo where one has to depress the knob to light the pilot and then turn it to ON.. i have tried a few different times trying different ways with no luck.. any ideas?

(the proper names of parts would also be appreciated)

thanks, brrrr

The unit with the dial is called the regulator.

The thermal switch thingie is called a thermocouple.

What typically happens is that spiders cause the pilot tube to restrict the gas output and the flame won't reach the thermocouple. If the thermocouple doesn't sense heat from the pilot light, it shuts off the gas to the pilot light. This is so that you don't blow up your house.

So, you just get in there and remove the pilot light tube and check for spider webs. Clean it out thoroughly, reinstall it, and the flame should reach the thermocouple. After the thermocouple heats up, you can remove your finger from the override button on the regulator, and the pilot light will remain lit.

Then turn the dial on the regulator to "ON" and you'll have heat via the main burners.

Try it a few more times. It might take a while to get the 'stale' gas out of the pipe. If its still no good, either the pilot is crudded up, or the control unit is bad. Either way I would leave it to a pro to service.

thanks guys.. i took the thermocouple off and blew crud out and lit the furnace "manually" and let it heat up the house a bit.. now i notice "scaly" material on the burners that must have falllen from above.. hmmm? the pilot still does not work unless i use my lighter to heat up the thermocouple.. i may bend the deflector shield a bit to direct the flame closer to the thermocouple..

are thermocouples ready available? cost?

i understand your comment about hiring a pro but i feel it's probably the thermocouple and i hate to drop a $100 or more for such a little part.. looks like i should be able to exchange that myself... the crud thing worries me a bit though.

It sounds like the pilot light is the problem, not the thermocouple. If the pilot light reaches the thermocouple, then the system will function properly. You can adjust the position of the thermocouple to ensure that it is in the pilot flame. But, if you have NO pilot flame, then a new thermocouple can't help you.

Sometimes the regulators have an adjustment for the size of the pilot flame............sometimes not.

ok, thanks BC.. i'll look into that more tomorrow.. for tonight i'll be ok.. got some space heaters working and ahh the h2o bed is 93F... :)

Anytime.........and the electric for the water bed is far less costly than the gas. ;)

lol. yeah and i was planning using more electrical heating appliances this winter but i don't have all i need and my firebox still needs tuck&pointing before i can fire up... well, and more wood too...

Okay, that's it! How do you know so much about this stuff? Are you asking Jeeves? :eek: :D

i think somehwere along the way he mentioned being a landlord.. or i am just confused...

I don't think you are confused . . . I also would guess his educational/professional backgrounds provide him a level of understanding on "how things work". I wish Brian lived nearer NH when the MB projects are underway. :D

Yeah, I had a bunch of houses for awhile. Many of them had hot water heaters and gas furnaces that needed a bit of help at one time or another. Had to figure it out. Certainly can't call a heating contractor and give him $200. for the visit. :o

My greatest accomplishment was to remove a gas furnace from one of them, prepare a new proper concrete plinth, install a brand new furnace, have the the new ducts made up, and add all wiring, gas lines, and exhaust (PVC) lines.

Total cost for the job, including the furnace, and all parts was $850.00.

A heating contractor would have got $3K for the job, and he would not have done the concrete plinth nor would he have run a new thermostat line.

It took two full weekends to get it all done, but, the satisfaction of throwing the switch and watching three main burners light off was immense.

Not to be funny, but anyone who doesn't know what the thingy is called, is best advised to get a licensed contractor to assess the problem. Every winter season has reports of houses blowing up from leaking or faulty gas furnaces, so why risk it to save the expense of a service call? Also, a new high efficiency unit with electronic ignition will probably save you a bundle in gas bills if your current system is more than 10-15 years old.

yeah, it's older then that but i can't afford a new furnace this year.. i started working on cars without knowing a darn thing about them and i haven't killed myself nor anybody else yet... gotta learn somehow.. starting now is in the cards.. :D if i feel it to be beyond my skills or i mess something up, i will call a pro.. safety is paramount..

While safety is paramount, a properly operating system has all the safeguards necessary to prevent unsafe operation. It's impossible to get the main burners to start without the pilot light remaining in operation. And it's impossible for the pilot light to remain lit if the thermocouple doesn't sense heat.

Now, a leak in a gas line is a completely separate discussion. There are no safeguards to prevent a tragedy in such a case.

MBZ, get a Monoxide and Gas detector like NOW. Also if you have a bad or unsafe furnace many power companies offer a replacement plan.

Thermocouples are cheap ($7) and available at Home Depot. Make sure you get the correct length. They are pretty simple to replace. Use a pipe cleaner to ream out the pilot tube. Plugged pilot tubes happen all the time on RV's because they are more exposed to insects.
Being a landlord makes a person adept at a lot of maintenance tasks. If you do this kind of work often it is good to keep a spray bottle with soapy water handy so you can test for gas leaks, or better yet, invest in a gas sniffer.

Consider yourself lucky, we just had a house red tagged because the licensed contractor didn't pull a permit prior to doing a simple maintenance. Apparently the city is low on funds and needs more permits.

What did the contractor do.........tell the city he was working without a permit?? :confused:

What the city doesn't know won't kill 'em.

I don't think I wrote that I actually did the work.
:)
One always has to be careful. I've talked the gas company out of red tagging me before.
For instance, Denver requires a solid pipe connection to all furnaces and hot water heaters. Aurora, immediately to the east, requires a flexible connection. Do the wrong thing in the wrong municipality and get red-tagged.
Apparently, there is no serious problem with taking either option since two adjacent municipalities think the opposite is ok. The gas company, which serves both municipalities seems sympathetic to these absurdities.
In Denver, it is illegal to replace your own toilet. A permit is needed and a homeowner has to pass a plumbing test before a permit is given. Of course I would never consider breaking the law.

God bless you. You are saving taxpayers money by avoiding wasting important city time on minor absurdities of building code enforcement.

The city drives around looking for repair trucks, a landlord or anyone else unlicensed will be put in jail........for real.

In out instance the HVAC guy was troubleshooting....and its coming to every city in the country.

Nope it takes money from the city collection fund, its getting almost unreal what the city likes to do is make the fines so extreme that it exceeds the value of the property and they take the property and auction it and all proceeds go to the city.

Heres a good one we were tickets for "trash in driveway" the "trash" was a few paint buckets in the picture that the city provided you could see the painters ladder with the painters feet at the top of the picture.

You guys should be applauding this stuff its a result of a far left city coucil and mayors office.

I cannot fathom how a municipality can prevent a person who owns a structure from making his own repairs on it??? Do they need a license to repair their vehicles as well? Just absurd.

Now a licensed contractor is a different story. Over here, the contractor needs a building permit if he does any work to the structure. But, it's never obtained unless the size of the structure is affected, thereby reflecting a change in the survey.

You, of all people, should be outraged at the government preventing you from working on your own property.

Hey I agree with you guys, Michigan state laws says that you have to pull a permit if the work is worth more than $100 if you are the owner you have to pull a homeowners permit and so on. Police, meter maids and city workers all keep an eye out for work being done on homes.

Our example was a furnace tech doing nothing more than checking the gas lines and doing a yearly monoxide test on the furnace and HW heater, we do it for liability many of the basements are Michigan basements with have dirt walls and floors so humidity is very high and a furnace can rust quickly.

Here's another good one, we were rehabbing a house that had REAL 2x12 floor joists well the plumber back in 1900 or so drilled holes for a drain.....the span was only 8 feet and the clown suggested we replace the joists with STEEL, we won that battle and only had to sister some 2x6's .


What this is a result of is the UAW running the labor market, if they make it difficult for a landlord or homeowner to do their own work or hire unlicensed scabs it helps the skilled union trades.

Brian Carlton

Hats off to you. ;)
As a licenced Gas Technician ( for the past 35 years ), it is refreshing to read the expert ( correct ) advice you're providing.
Keep up the good work ! ;)

[QUOTE=kerry edwards
In Denver, it is illegal to replace your own toilet. A permit is needed and a homeowner has to pass a plumbing test before a permit is given. Of course I would never consider breaking the law.[/QUOTE]

I see you have the same sort of rules we have the difference is they are taking an more active enforcement role, IE jail.......I think its pitiful.

Heres an example

City to toughen housing enforcement

Parking officers will see more responsibility

By JENNIFER PRESTON
State News Staff Writer

Housing code violators may soon see the same type of ticket usually issued for litter or parking violations.

The city of East Lansing, in an attempt to beautify the neighborhoods, wants Parking and Code Enforcement (PACE) officers to enforce housing issues previously looked at by city inspectors only once a year.

Typically, the two housing inspectors who work directly for the city of East Lansing annually inspect every rental house in the city. But the city decided a little more than a year ago they wanted to make the discovery and correction of violations more consistent and frequent.

The East Lansing City Council will likely approve the new housing code next week, which is why the city has not yet charged PACE officers with the duty of identifying exterior housing code violations, said Howard Asch, the city’s code enforcement and neighborhood conservation director.

“We wanted to make sure we got the new code into place and trained our own inspectors before we brought PACE into it,” Asch said. City Manager Ted Staton will most likely assign the code enforcement officers their new duties within the next month, he said.

Asch said the change will make code violation enforcement in the city more efficient, although the officers will only be able to warn the house for violations visible outside from the sidewalk or street.

“It will allow us to find problems and get them taken care of quicker,” he said.

This will provide code enforcement officers more leverage to help get properties up to code faster, Asch said.

“We’re looking for whatever ways we can to improve the appearance of the community and the living conditions for the community,” he said.

Asch said he doesn’t expect there to be much difference from current city inspector practices.

“On some properties that have problems, this may just help add to the list,” Asch said.“I don’t expect there’ll be a lot of situations where PACE officers will be driving around, see a broken window and write a ticket to the resident of the house.”

Asch said the residents and landlords should be given the normal 30 days to fix the problem before a ticket is issued.

Code enforcement officers are now usually found issuing citations for things such as litter and parking violations.

City Councilmember Douglas Jester said the change is not significant.

“There are no new requirements, just slightly better enforcement,” Jester said.

He added that the enforcement will be not just on rental properties, but on owner-occupied houses as well.

City landlords contacted for this story said they have not followed the issue enough to comment.

Thanks, but, I'm no expert. I'm not a licensed professional and I don't claim to know half of what's required to fulfill all the tasks necessary under the license.

But, I have a bit of knowledge, as an engineer and a landlord, which I'm happy to share with others. ;)

You will enjoy this and it relates precisely to what is quoted above:

The village of Patchogue, our local municipality, decided to embark on a similar goal. But, in their case, they wanted to screw the landlords. So, they sent out their code enforcement goons to find every single violation that they could possibly write up.

Cracked window pane.

A crack in some concrete.

Some paint peeling.

Stain on a driveway.



You name it.......they wrote a violation for it. Sometimes they wrote 30 violations for a single dwelling.

When the violator went to court, the Village had the judge in their pocket. The fine was $1,000 per violation. :eek:

The prosecutor would typically offer a deal..........plead guilty to five violations and accept a fine of $5,000. :eek: Many Landlords were totally screwed by this behavior. But, some fought back, using an agency called the "Coalition of Landlords and Tenants". This group knew the law perfectly and could easily fight the tickets as BS.

Finally, the Coalition took the Village to Federal court with the allegation that they targeted ethnic minorities who were living in the tenant occupied housing.

They won the case.

It cost the Village something like $500K when it all came down.

Needless to say, the Village does not attempt to enforce any code violations in an arbitrary manner, anymore.

You can fight back. And you can win. You need more support than you can get with your personal attorney.

Yip it seems like its going around, the city values aren't worth holding onto the propertys and they are correcting as we speak so we have one left and can't wait to get rid of em. Building new homes is much easier, the shame is many old homes with potential are being destroyed because of excessive violations. The median value in the city is only $60K so why bother?

If I were to make a guess, it seems to me that Michigan cities are taking a legal approach to a social and economic problem. As rust belt cities lose industry and jobs, the property values decline for both landlords and homeowners. There's less incentive for landlords and owners to keep their properties up and the cities take on a declining appearance. The only real solution is economic but lawmakers take the shortcut.
Landlords that complain the most about landlording on MrLandlord.com seem to come from Detroit.

I think that is a fair assesment, I can't imagine who whould bother renting in
Detroit of Flint and target money meant for restoring the homes or fixer upper homebuyer incentives is being used for more industry tax incentives and the cycle starts again. The cycle rinses and repeats every 5-10 years. OTOH cities like Las Vegas, Orlando, Miami and I think Denver is on the list values are increasing because the cities have taken a more proactive stance on commerce instead of putting a constricting band aid on the problem.


Check out the HUD listings for detroit homes its comical.

Where can one get a Furnace? I need a new one, and all I see is Deals on a furnace with installation, I can do the pipes myself, and my sisters husband is a certified heating tech, so he will make sure it's all in place, but he's lazy so I have to get everything myself and install it so he can come in a check it out.

I see Lennox Furnaces, but they are not stand alone, entire packages, any ideas?

xp

your bro in law should be able to get you the best deal through his pro connections.. other then that i was wondering the same thing..

btw. there is no pilot adjustment on my furnace.. i think i'll pull that line and run some wire through it and see what shakes out.. hopefuly tonight.. got all sidetracked last night.. will update.. thanks everybody

Well, you can't buy one from the local distributor without a license. So, what I did was head on over to e-bay. They have quite a selection of gas furnaces at very attractive prices. I believe that the one I purchased was $540.00 with another $100. for shipping to the local terminal. An excellent value.

I think it was mentioned to bend the thermocouple (which is a copper wire that runs from the control box to what looks like a skinny O² sensor) into the pilot if it is not in the pilot's flame... if you have a good flame there that will work... just look over things three times before taking action and you should be good.

If the flame is on the thermocouple and it is allowing the pilot to die out it probably need replaced. Also as has been said 'measure the old one'. They are only like $4.00 to $8.00 US depending on length.

Just a quick refresher as you get ready to look at the beast based on last years work in the Modine... good luck.

the thermocouple is not in the flame... it is also in a bracket with the flame that is too thick to bend towards the flame.. i kind of messed with the deflector some but couldn't really get the flame to go that much more towards the thermocouple.. we'll see, maybe after dinner..

theoreticaly you could remove the thermocouple from the bracket and rig it so it is in the flame as long as the pilot is successfully able to light the furnace... aprox. how long is the flame of the pilot light in inches?

well the gas hits a deflector so the flame is kind of horizontal. it's maybe 1.5" wide... maybe 1/2" past the deflector.. i'd guess the thermocouple is 3/4"-1/2" away.. just guessing though.. it could be a bit closer but not close enough to keep the thremocouple warm... it seemed to work just fine when i put fire to it directly but a few moments later (maybe 10sec,) after taking the fire away from the thermocouple, it kicks off (click emmited from the regulator)

Okay............I'm going to tell you this once & once only. ;)
The top portion of the thermocouple ( 1/2" or so ), must be heated by the pilot flame.
DO NOT bend the thermocouple.
There are 100's of strands of fine wire encased in ther.
If you bend it, you will surely break some, if not all of these wires.
Take out the pilot orifice, run a VERY fine wire through the hole (s ), blow residue out with compressed air & see what kind of flame you get.
If I can be of any more help just let me know. ;)

Pilot orifice is the problem
 

Not sure of your furnace type, but there is probably a replaceable pilot orifice or tube which is clogged up with crud-find the parts supplier for your furnace brand, get your model and serial #s, stop by in person with a good sob story for them-usually you only need licenses for freon, A/C parts/units, etc.