What a piece of shyt.
Previously I had a Lennox oil burner (forced air) furnace, but when my boy arrived in late '94 I decided to toss that noisy smelly oil burner and switch to natural gas, so far it has managed to fail 12 times, the first six were covered under warranty, but this last episode took the cake.
The furnace is controlled by a IFC (integrated furnace control), a simple looking circuit mounted in a PCB, it contains a myriad of relays, a chip, some resisters, diodes, IC's and dip switches.
Now this board has failed three times in the past 4 years which has left me with no heat, the first time around I called the company who installed it, they came to my house, diagnosed the problem and replaced the board, the last two times I diagnosed it myself and replaced it.
Two days ago I woke up in a 38 degree house, POS :| , so I yank the access cover and find 1 inch of puddled water, apparently the neoprene condensation drain hoses have failed, thus filling the sensor, blower and IFC area with water, I cleaned up the mess, replaced the hoses and turn on the furnace, nothing.
I pull the access cover for the IFC, no LED are lit, I kill the power and start the diagnoses process, come to find that all the multi-pin connectors are corroded from the water intrusion, I carefully pull the pins one at a time and clean them up, I turn the power back on, nothing.
By this time it is approaching freezing temps in my house, so I head down to my shop and pick up my two salamanders (kerosene fired forced air heaters), now that there is some heat in my house I go back to repairing the furnace.
I next remove the IFC from it's plastic mounting box, I see no external damage so I start testing all the safety devices, it appear to be in working order, I reinstall the IFC and fire her up, BINGO, I now have lit LED's, the blower starts but no power to the thin film igniter, thus no gas flow.
I follow the diagnostic tree printed on the back of the IFC cover, it passes all the tests right up to the point where the igniter is supposed to fire, I remove the igniter and test it's resistance, it's fine so I temporarily hook it up to V, it fires right up, according to the diagnostic tree printed on the cover, I have to replace the IFC because it is no longer supplying voltage to the igniter, guess what, Rheem no longer supplies new IFC's anymore, I have to (according to them) buy a new furnace and have it installed by a licensed HVAC technician.
They can blow me.
I go about reassembling the mess, I flip the switch and suddenly I have flame 🙂
This leads me to believe either there are more bad connections or one of the safety devices has failed, I let the furnace run until the thermostat shuts the furnace off, I reset the thermostat for more heat, nothing 🙁, I then start bypassing one safety device at a time (overheat sensors (2), blower sensor, flame sensor), once again I have ignition, I reattach the safety sensors one at a time until it fails, apparently one of the overheat sensors (nothing but a bi-metallic strip connected to a micro-switch) has failed, I call up for a new part, "sorry sir, we do not have those replacement parts anymore" :| :| .
Unfvcking believable
So, now I have to go out and buy a new furnace, now on to the million dollar question ;
Who makes the best gas fired, forced air furnace on the market ?
Previously I had a Lennox oil burner (forced air) furnace, but when my boy arrived in late '94 I decided to toss that noisy smelly oil burner and switch to natural gas, so far it has managed to fail 12 times, the first six were covered under warranty, but this last episode took the cake.
The furnace is controlled by a IFC (integrated furnace control), a simple looking circuit mounted in a PCB, it contains a myriad of relays, a chip, some resisters, diodes, IC's and dip switches.
Now this board has failed three times in the past 4 years which has left me with no heat, the first time around I called the company who installed it, they came to my house, diagnosed the problem and replaced the board, the last two times I diagnosed it myself and replaced it.
Two days ago I woke up in a 38 degree house, POS :| , so I yank the access cover and find 1 inch of puddled water, apparently the neoprene condensation drain hoses have failed, thus filling the sensor, blower and IFC area with water, I cleaned up the mess, replaced the hoses and turn on the furnace, nothing.
I pull the access cover for the IFC, no LED are lit, I kill the power and start the diagnoses process, come to find that all the multi-pin connectors are corroded from the water intrusion, I carefully pull the pins one at a time and clean them up, I turn the power back on, nothing.
By this time it is approaching freezing temps in my house, so I head down to my shop and pick up my two salamanders (kerosene fired forced air heaters), now that there is some heat in my house I go back to repairing the furnace.
I next remove the IFC from it's plastic mounting box, I see no external damage so I start testing all the safety devices, it appear to be in working order, I reinstall the IFC and fire her up, BINGO, I now have lit LED's, the blower starts but no power to the thin film igniter, thus no gas flow.
I follow the diagnostic tree printed on the back of the IFC cover, it passes all the tests right up to the point where the igniter is supposed to fire, I remove the igniter and test it's resistance, it's fine so I temporarily hook it up to V, it fires right up, according to the diagnostic tree printed on the cover, I have to replace the IFC because it is no longer supplying voltage to the igniter, guess what, Rheem no longer supplies new IFC's anymore, I have to (according to them) buy a new furnace and have it installed by a licensed HVAC technician.
They can blow me.
I go about reassembling the mess, I flip the switch and suddenly I have flame 🙂
This leads me to believe either there are more bad connections or one of the safety devices has failed, I let the furnace run until the thermostat shuts the furnace off, I reset the thermostat for more heat, nothing 🙁, I then start bypassing one safety device at a time (overheat sensors (2), blower sensor, flame sensor), once again I have ignition, I reattach the safety sensors one at a time until it fails, apparently one of the overheat sensors (nothing but a bi-metallic strip connected to a micro-switch) has failed, I call up for a new part, "sorry sir, we do not have those replacement parts anymore" :| :| .
Unfvcking believable
So, now I have to go out and buy a new furnace, now on to the million dollar question ;
Who makes the best gas fired, forced air furnace on the market ?
