Hi Folks:
I have an Empire 5088-2 Floor Furnace that is giving me fits. A couple of weeks ago, my furnace would not light but I could get pilot to remain on. I went and used a can of pressurized air from below and cleaned the burners while a friend used a vacuum cleaner to suck up the dust. After that, the burners came on with the thermostat control. Now, I have a problem with the thermostat not kicking on the burners. I can turn the unit on using the manual lever to the on position but not with thermostat. The pilot I noticed is yellow with hardly no blue at all. I disconnected the thermostat wires and jumped the wires at this location with no avail. I went under the house and disconnected the t-stat wires at the Valve and jumped the terminals. Sometimes the burners light and sometimes it doesn't. So if I can manually turn burners on using lever but cant by jumping the wires...does this mean the Valve is bad or is it something else. Thank you guys for your input.
Dallas

 

Use the air ajustment bolt to get a blue flame.

 

Clean the pilot, sounds like it is not generating enough voltage to operate the system

 

Thank guys. I will try that.
Dallas

 

Well...I could crank up the burners manually with the lever on the Valve yesterday but after vacuuming the inside of the housing this morning I then was unable to crank up the unit after the cleaning. I then went and disconnected the pilot/thermopile unit from the furnace and cleaned and blew out the orifices and then reconnected. I now get a pilot light that is blue in color so this helped. But I still cannot light the system either by the thermostat or by the manual lever on the valve. The only way I can get the burners to ignite is by jumping the thermostat connectors at the Valve . But once I take the leads off, the burners go out. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Dallas

 

There should be two limit switches. Make sure they are closed.