twist of fait accomplis
So I've got a question for fellow home-owners out there...
This morning, we got up and it was mighty chilly in the house. I checked the thermostat and, indeed, it was showing 62 even though it's set at 70. I played around with the thermostat a bit, trying to force it on by switching from AUTO to FAN, taking it to air conditioning and dropping the temp, turning it on and back off, etc. Each time, I'd hear the "click" on the thermostat, but nothing would kick in from the basement. A while back, the igniter had failed, but in that case, the fan was still blowing (very, very cold) air. This time, nothing was happening.
Last night I switched the filter and I figure it's been not working since that time. So, I went to the basement and took off and then replaced both panels on the heater and even took the filter out and put it back in. Still nothing.
Any thoughts on what the problem could be?
(The one thing I haven't tried is manually holding in the little button on the heater that the bottom panel is supposed to depress. Going to try that tonight.)
01:59 PMWorst case - your compressor is shot - expect about a $1500 - $2000 repair bill. We went through it twice with our Leesburg house. First time was mechanical failure under warranty - so we only had to pay the labor charge, which was about $500 IIRC. 2nd time was when the dog chewed the wiring causing a short which blew the compressor. That one was about $2000 - all out of my pocket.
Posted by: COD on March 27, 2006 2:45 PMWish I could help, we never had too many troubles with our gas heater in Virginia. Since we've been here, on oil heat, we had an issue very similar. Turned out that the oil filter had a leak and once switched on, the heater would immediately turn off when it wasn't drawing enough oil through the line.
Good luck!
Posted by: KelliDiane on March 28, 2006 3:24 PMAll furnaces operate very similar but the controls which do this can very greatly. Sounds like you have a forced or induced draft furnace with a hot surface igniter. So the sequence would be very similar to this.
1 thermostat calls for heat
2 draft motor starts
3 air proving switch confirms Draft air flow
4 two or more limit switches prove an over temp condition hasn't occured. (some of these are manually reset with a little red button that will click if it needs reset)
5 The igniter will be energized.
6 Gas is passed over the igniter
7 A flame sensor proves that flame is present.
8 Igniter is de-energized.
9 When the heat exchanger gets warm enough the blower fan will come on and move warm air thru the house.
10 When the thermostat is satisfied main gas will be turned off
11 the blower shuts down after heat exchanger is cooled
Many of our professionals like to answer question about this problem. If you get a chance post a question in the forum. www.how2fix.com
Posted by: John on April 7, 2006 9:50 PMYou are reading...
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