The NEWS - February 18, 2008 - (Page 55)

service & maintenance Investigating Furnace Failures The Know-How to Inspect Heat Exchangers Can Save Lives By Ellis Prach For The NEWS hen you or one of your company’s service technicians leaves a customer’s house, are you 100 percent confident that your customer and their family are safe? Do you and your service technicians know how to properly and thoroughly inspect a furnace heat exchanger? It goes way beyond safety checking the obvious components. The most important part of a safety inspection is checking for gas leaks, checking carbon monoxide levels and inspecting the heat exchanger. I have been in the HVAC service industry for about 50 years. Thirty years ago, I realized that service technicians, utility technicians, and otherwise excellent service people have no concept of how to safety check a furnace heat exchanger. Other than conducting a carbon monoxide test, looking for something obvious like blower interference, or a clear massive crack in the heat exchanger, I know that a large percentage of HVAC field technicians and those working for gas utility companies are not properly trained on the appropriate way to conduct a residential furnace heat exchanger safety inspection. Trained individuals who can accurately determine the integrity of a furnace heat exchanger face another obstacle: second opinions by those who may not be trained or who are undertrained. For example, many times a gas company technician will tell a homeowner that the furnace is fine after I or one of my employees has found a crack. I can’t count the number of times I have had to meet a gas company technician and show him where the crack is located in a heat exchanger. They always say the same thing “Well, it wasn’t there last week when I looked” or “This is the first time I missed a crack.” Gas company technicians have no business diagnosing the integrity of a furnace heat exchanger if they don’t know how. They should get the proper training, or not look at furnaces at all. W training on residential furnace heat exchanger inspection. One comment that has always been made about me is that I have a passion for what I teach. The reason for this passion is the fact that I have been in homes after a fatality from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty heat exchanger that could have been prevented had the furnace been serviced and inspected by a properly trained individual. I have been hired as an expert witness in court cases involving carbon monoxide poisonings due to cracked heat exchangers; in several of them death was a result of carbon monoxide. One reason that prompted me to write The hottest hybrid in supermarket refrigeration. Part mechanical, part electronic totally cool. IT REALLY IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH I have written other articles on heat exchanger inspection techniques and cannot stress enough the importance of proper ONLINE AT WWW.ACHRNEWS.COM ■ Part mechanical, part electronic and so hot, it’s cool. eProduct #47 at achrnews.com Aerospace | Automation | Climate & Industrial Controls | Filtration | Fluid Connectors | Hydraulics | Instrumentation | Seal February 18, 2008 Sporlan071607.indd 1 7/5/07 10:06:04 AM 55 http://www.sporlan.com http://WWW.ACHRNEWS.COM http://WWW.ACHRNEWS.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The NEWS - February 18, 2008

The NEWS - February 18, 2008 Turnout Contents Newsline FYI Unitary Oil-Fired Products Furnaces Hydronics Ductless Rooftops Drives & Motors Controls Transmitters, Sensors Zoning Valves Refrigerants Condensers & Coils Heat Exchangers Cooling Towers Chillers Duct Products Humidification IAQ Monitors, Instruments Trucks Tools Software Installation, Maintenance of HVAC Coils Munters MCS Dries Up Water Concerns at Hospital Michigan Home Show Brings out Contractors Investigating Furnace Failures Mold/Bacteria Protection of A/C Coil Learning Center Classifieds Advertisers Opinions

The NEWS - February 18, 2008

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