Alison Jackson admits she probably waited too long to address her 25-year-old gas furnace in her Mahwah home. "We knew it was old and we were waiting for it ...
this question pertains to the average useful life of a single family home natural gas forced-air furnace used for heating. the home is located in a mild climate (California) and thus the furnace is not used excessively.
I have a Carrier Furnace that is 4 years old. This past spring it was leaking quite a bit of water so I turned the whole thing off as we don't use it in the summer anyway.
There is a line that is about a dime width that water is released from the furnace. This is full of water and it is not emptying into the sink where the line drains. This line originates at a box on the side of the furnace which I assume is a pump to push the water out. Is there a way to fix the pump? Determine if the pump is indeed not working? Replace the pump?
I am fairly competent with most repairs if I understand what's going on. Is this something I can fix myself? Or at least do a little problem solving? Or even put a quick fix on? It's cold and I just need heat for another month.
My cash flow is severely limited and the company that installed the furnace are horribly overpriced and inefficient and snotty.
Hooray!
I went down and made sure the furnace was completely shut off (gas and power). I unplugged the pump (thanks for that info!) and took off the top. After looking at it and figuring out how it worked (pretty simple really) I could see that I had a bunch of fairly easy solutions.
a) I could poke around the float because maybe it was just stuck and try again
b) just take the hose out of the pump entirely and let the water drain onto the floor or extend that pipe to the floor drain thus bypassing the pump for a quick and temporary fix
c) just take the whole thing off and have it replaced or fixed without having some doofus repair guy come into my home and all that hassle (thanks Drewfuss!)
So anyway I poked around the float which did seem to be sticky and gave it a wipe. Then I turned the furnace back on and filled the water reservoir with water to see what would happen and well... it just worked fine.
THANK GOODNESS!
Now it's warm and toasty in here. Great advice guys! Thanks
... replacing heat pump, 4500, $30.60, Mack Morris Heating and Air Conditioning. l NVR Inc., new single family dwelling with attached garage, $257000, ...