Yesterday woke up to a cooler than normal house. Come downstairs and the thermostat is calling for heat (68 F), furnace is running but when I checked one of the vents it's blowing cold. Pull the combustion chamber cover, no flame. Turned down the thermostat to below room temp and the fan keeps running.
In the end I pulled the lower cover, the door switch of course kills everything. I pushed the switch in to run the control board's diagnostic, it tells me the last code was "flame rollout switch open". Interestingly the fan does not come back on when I push in the cover switch. So I decided to put everything back together while I hit the intrawebs to research the issue, cranked the thermostat back up and lo and behold the furnace starts working normally (inducer start, burner lights and I have warm air out of the vents).
Great. Except 25 minutes later I hear a click from the furnace and sure enough- flame out. Fan keeps running.
By now I had read that flame rollout switches have a reset button. So pulled the cover again, my York furnace had 3 rollout switches. Pushed each one, no clicks heard or felt, tested each one for continuity with my multimeter and then started it up again.
Well, it is now 36 hours and the furnace is running fine. I talked to an HVAC guy today, he said they get a lot of calls for the same thing when it gets windy (we had a front move in last night).
So FYI, if your furnace was working fine but suddenly is just blowing cold air continuously check your flame rollout switches.
I've owned a multitude of rental properties for decades. Never once had a furnace problem caused by wind or weather. Usually a tripping flame rollout switch is caused by a cracked or corroded heat exchanger. A potentially dangerous situation. How is your furnace exhausted?
It's an 80% efficiency furnace with a vertical gravity flue. I see no corrosion or cracks looking through the heat exchanger, it was inspected in February by an HVAC tech.
I do have someone coming out to the house in a few days to install 2 heat pumps (supplementing our forced air system) and will have him do a triple check.
I am paranoid about CO poisoning, my wife has had a brain aneurysm burst and 2 people in her brain injury support group are disabled from CO leaking into their homes. So we have two CO detectors on our ground floor (one 5 feet from the furnace) and two upstairs by the bedrooms. Just for grins I checked each one this morning and the peak CO readings are 0 ppm for all four.
Our previous home had an issue where the vertical part of the exhaust had been installed with a 1" gap where the furnace exhaust had not been connected properly, hidden behind the unit. It was very fortunate that it was still aligned and the heated exhaust wanted to go straight up, forming its own venturi effect. It had been that way for years, so if it had been a problem the previous owners would have not survived to sell us the house. Still, it made me very wary of the issues of shoddy workmanship.
I will have the furnace inspected by a professional. Hopefully not the one who couldn't install a flue correctly.
Interesting.... the furnace should not be recovering from a rollout sensor trip.
Those sensors normally have a red button on them and they need to be pushed in manually.
If you run the furnace with the burner door off (blower door on) do you see flames coming out of the burning chamber ?
Well, starting to get a little more paranoid, it happened again this morning. Literally right after I posted my reply I noticed the thermostat display calling for heat and cold air coming from the vents.
Hit the reset buttons, it is working properly now, got to temp, shut off the furnace correctly...
Here was my brother fixing the vent cap a few years ago. I believe it's a "wind proof" cap.
PJMax- I had to manually press the reset buttons (Monday and today). I was just over looking at it and the burner action seems normal.
Hi all,
I bought a home heating oil tank in line fuel filter. Im tired of changing my nozzle once or twice a winter and cleaning my small pump filter then have to prime. Cant be good to have to keep taking it apart.
Anyway, I have my tank out back, its a trailer.the supply line is small copper line in the dirt to the house. Maybe 20 feet lin length. I'd like to install a filter right off the hardline right after the tank shutoff valve. I dont have welding skills but I've changed transmission and radiator hoses etc.
can I use flexible hoses with clamps to install the filter.
I dont see a problem with it minus insurance qualms or maybe state law or codes requiring hard line. I dont have much clearance from the supply line to the ground if any so this would also facilitate that issue rather then having to figure how to raise that line or dig a hole for a box to hold filter. I dunno. I figure if I secure everything tightly it will be fine and put it in an aerated box above ground.
So in your answer other than law or insurance issues, is there mechanical issues if I use fuel rated hoses? Short hardlines from inlet and outlet to the hoses since those are female and to make a males connector for the hose.
thank you
Cycled the heater all seemed fine until end of cycle. Burner went out but blower and inducer remained on. When house temp dropped to thermostat turn on the control board indicated no call for heat. Unplugged furnace for a moment then plugged back in and the furnace completed another heat cycle. Anyone know what this problem might be? Control board? My furnace is a Trane XE80.
11-08-22, 09:36 PM
