Hey guys,

I own a mobile home in California and have a Nordyne M7RL 060A BWT furnace. It has been operating just fine, but it has been giving me some problems for a couple days. I took some things apart to double-check and have narrowed down the problem to a single issue: water build-up in the inducer housing. I have taken the inducer housing apart, cleaned it (wasn't dirty at all), checked the drain pipes and everything seems OK, there is water in the trap (loop of hose on the bottom of the furnace), drain pipe is OK (i blew through all of them), yet the inducer's drain pipe outlet doesn't drip at all. If you look at the attached picture, the drips are coming from the bottom of the inducer housing (not from the hose or the yellow plugged outlet). Any comments or ideas on why this would happen..?

 

Welcome to the forums.

Condensing furnaces can be tricky because some of the drain lines need to run into traps.
If they are all open the vacuum can keep the water from draining where it should.

I'm not familiar with that furnace but it looks like the condensate should be coming out of the bottom of the inducer where that small line is with the yellow clamp.

Have you tried removing the hose and making sure there is no clog up in the inline drain fitting ?

I'll see if I can find some tech info for us.

 

I'd like to see where the drain lines converge. Can you take a picture with the blower door off?
Poor service info on this unit as far as the condensate system.

 

I just installed the two stage M7TL version 60K. So the housing has condensate backing up ? Is there any condensate flowing into the trap below at all. The fluid level should just fill the trap that matches where the elbow connects to the main black drain hose. Is it possible there is something clogging the main drain right above where the clear hose is clamped on ? Have you taken off the yellow cap to see if condensate comes out of it ? It shouldn't be leaking where the housing is attached to the front sheet metal. Just be careful with the condensate as it is acidic. I had to run mine through a neutralizer before I could run it in my sewer. God bless. Hk

 

Thank you guys for all the pointers, MUCH appreciated. So I spent a little bit more time on this yesterday after posting on the forum and have managed to fix a couple things. The housing for the inducer wasn't clicked together properly, hence the leak. It is now dry after a couple hours of operation.

Second thing was that I noticed in the Nordyne manual (very bad manual) that the hose connection where the yellow cap is, shouldn't be facing down, but rather towards the user, so I turned it. This resulted in condensate draining properly through the bottom hose, into the trap and everything on this front seems to be OK. I'm posting some pics so you can see and perhaps advise that this was the right move..







For the bottom part where the condenser hoses connect, I tried to take a couple pics to ask whether everything seems right down there. All clamps are secure and there is water in the 'U' section of the pipe constantly, but it doesn't look like precision engineering - if you know what I mean :NO NO NO:





So the new problem that I'm facing is that sometimes the furnace short cycles and I suspect this is because I 'cleaned' the flame sensor with sand paper. I might have to buy a new flame sensor But when it short cycles, it doesn't give me any codes, just acts normal. Should it give any codes for flame sensor problem? How do I know if my flame sensor is nearly faulty or faulty..?

 

Flipped and touched up your pics a little.

The flame sensor is just a piece of metal.
I like using a green scotch pad so that it's not heavily grooved.
Steel wool and very fine emery paper can also be used.

There isn't actually a code for the flame sensor but there is a active monitor.

 

I appreciate the pic adjustment Pjmax. I can see that there is an attachment in your message, but it doesn't show and link says it's broken.. What do you mean by 'active monitor'?

I took the flame sensor out this morning and cleaned it with just a piece of paper and the furnace worked a couple times this morning when the t-stat called for heat. I guess I just want to cover any problems that may arise. Do you see the condensation hoses properly? Do they look like the right way?

 

I repaired the broken link. The hose look ok.

 

Ah yeah I've seen this table in the manual, yet even if I unplug the flame sensor completely, it just short cycles but didn't show any flashing activity.... So not easy to troubleshoot

 

Try re-cleaning the flame rod again.
Make sure it's sitting in the flame. It must be IN the flame.

 

PJ has it taken care of. As for sandpaper it can get pretty aggressive. Scotch pads are more cleaning friendly. Good you got it straightened out and working. I have my drain coupling like you had yours and don't seem to have any issue. I assume the yellow plugged drain is for a reserve/alternate drain. Just make sure all condensate is cleaned up/diluted where it was dripping. As for that black drain pipe, it is easy to kink. I ended up buying two plastic barb elbows and cutting two short pieces of the black hose to 90 degree it down eliminating any kinking. BTW, how long has the furnace been in operation ? Have you had to replace any parts yet. Thanks and God bless.