By Barry Stone
Dear Barry,
I just bought a brand-new home with a gas furnace in the garage. The unit is installed on a raised platform, but it's not higher than the bumper of my car. The builder fastened cement bumpers to the garage floor to keep my cars from hitting the furnace, but the position of these blocks prevents my cars from pulling in enough so that the garage door can close. I told the builder about this, but he refused to move the blocks. Isn't he responsible for making the garage usable as a parking area?
- Will
Dear Will,
The building code requires that a furnace in a garage be protected from vehicle impact and specifies three general methods: "by being installed behind protective barriers or by being elevated or located out of the normal path of vehicles." In your garage, elevating the furnace was not sufficient, so protective barriers were installed. But the builder should meet these requirements without creating new or unintended problems or difficulties. In this case, the primary purpose of the garage - to serve as a shelter for your vehicles - has been compromised. The builder's obligation, therefore, is to address the issue in a manner that is consistent with reason and common sense. If he refuses to be reasonable, send him a certified letter. Inform him that he has 30 days to correct the problem, after which you will have corrective work done by another contractor and will recover the costs for such repairs in small claims court. An alternative to this would be to file a complaint with the state agency that licenses building contractors.
By the way, the most common and practical means of protecting the furnace from vehicle impact is to install a steel post in front of the fixture.
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