diamond dogs
New Member
Hi, new to the forum, first post. I have an older (92) York 32000 btu 80% furnace in my addition (just 2 burners). Thankfully I have a carbon monoxide alarm in there, because it went off today.
After shutting off the furnace and airing it out, I observed that one of the burners had some soot marks around it and was burning without much force / yellow flame. checked the vent and it was coated with soot, but otherwise not clogged. so i guessed the heat exchanger might be clogged. I was able to look in the top after tilting the condenser up, and everything looks pretty clean in there, didn't notice any obvious leaks. took the exhaust blower / plate off and it was full of soot, so was the heat exchanger for that burner, just absolutely caked inside. the included pic is after i vacuumed it out a bit. so im assuming that the middle section that i cant see or get to is also very clogged with soot.
so a couple questions, what might cause one burner to not work properly while the other is fine? a clogged tip (nozzle?) is the only thing i can think of. second, if i am able to get that working, I'm worried about the soot in the exchanger still blocking flow, how might i clean it? i thought of spraying a bunch of brake cleaner through there followed by compressed air? i believe that the carbon monoxide was coming out of the manifold because there wasn't enough flow to draw it into the exhaust.
im also wondering, is this worth fixing or is it time for a new furnace? I know its getting to be that age when i should start thinking about that anyway. unfortunately. i was going to save up and get some high efficiency furnaces for both this and the main house next summer. I could get a used furnace in the meantime, but the small size is harder to find (also its propane) and i cant really put a larger furnace in there because its in a fairly small room.
also the main house furnace has a strange problem as well. seems to work fine, but when i turn the heat down for the night, it goes past the temp i have set it to and doesn't come on. i have observed the exhaust blower going and the ignition element glowing with no gas. it has a new exhaust blower by the way.
any help would be appreciated, as usual this comes at a not so great time.
After shutting off the furnace and airing it out, I observed that one of the burners had some soot marks around it and was burning without much force / yellow flame. checked the vent and it was coated with soot, but otherwise not clogged. so i guessed the heat exchanger might be clogged. I was able to look in the top after tilting the condenser up, and everything looks pretty clean in there, didn't notice any obvious leaks. took the exhaust blower / plate off and it was full of soot, so was the heat exchanger for that burner, just absolutely caked inside. the included pic is after i vacuumed it out a bit. so im assuming that the middle section that i cant see or get to is also very clogged with soot.
so a couple questions, what might cause one burner to not work properly while the other is fine? a clogged tip (nozzle?) is the only thing i can think of. second, if i am able to get that working, I'm worried about the soot in the exchanger still blocking flow, how might i clean it? i thought of spraying a bunch of brake cleaner through there followed by compressed air? i believe that the carbon monoxide was coming out of the manifold because there wasn't enough flow to draw it into the exhaust.
im also wondering, is this worth fixing or is it time for a new furnace? I know its getting to be that age when i should start thinking about that anyway. unfortunately. i was going to save up and get some high efficiency furnaces for both this and the main house next summer. I could get a used furnace in the meantime, but the small size is harder to find (also its propane) and i cant really put a larger furnace in there because its in a fairly small room.
also the main house furnace has a strange problem as well. seems to work fine, but when i turn the heat down for the night, it goes past the temp i have set it to and doesn't come on. i have observed the exhaust blower going and the ignition element glowing with no gas. it has a new exhaust blower by the way.
any help would be appreciated, as usual this comes at a not so great time.