Stupid heaters

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cowchaser

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Joined
Sep 14, 2007
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927
Location
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, USA.
Central heat unit. Get up this morning and it's running for about 10 minutes. I hear it go off, but a fan inside is still running. Within 10 seconds comes on again. Just keeps doing this, but has yet to make it up to what the thermostat is set at. I turn it off at the thermostat, but can still hear something buzzing in it. Being how it's 4 degrees here today. I'll have to chance it burning up, I'm freezing to death in my own home. Must have started this sometime in the middle of the night. I have little ones so I have to have some kind of heat.

Service can't come till NEXT Thursday.
 
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Same thing happened to me last year. I shut the entire unit down by the main breaker and rebooted it. It turned back on and gas lit back up right away heat came back on.
 
If your heater doesn't have a standing pilot light, but electronic ignition it's quite possible that the sensor to check for combustion is dirty causing a false reading. I had the same problem as your explaining, took apart the furnance and cleaned the sensor with some sand paper and it works fine.
 
Hope you figure it out quick. This ain't the time for this to happen for sure. Wish I had some help for you but I don;t even use my propane central unit.
 
Same thing happened to me earlier this year...

jleiwig said:
If your heater doesn't have a standing pilot light, but electronic ignition it's quite possible that the sensor to check for combustion is dirty causing a false reading. I had the same problem as your explaining, took apart the furnance and cleaned the sensor with some sand paper and it works fine.
Click to expand...

I took out my ignition/flame sensor and gave it a steel wool massage. It has worked great since...
 
cowchaser said:
Central heat unit. Get up this morning and it's running for about 10 minutes. I hear it go off, but a fan inside is still running. Within 10 seconds comes on again. Just keeps doing this, but has yet to make it up to what the thermostat is set at. I turn it off at the thermostat, but can still hear something buzzing in it. Being how it's 4 degrees here today. I'll have to chance it burning up, I'm freezing to death in my own home. Must have started this sometime in the middle of the night. I have little ones so I have to have some kind of heat.

Service can't come till NEXT Thursday.
Click to expand...


Is there an outside heatexchanger? Like with a heat pump? I had trouble with mine freezing up both in the winter (go figure) and due to high humidity in the summer. Turns out this is a normal issue when the coolant is low (ada leaking). Just something to check if you have a unit outside.
Good luck and I hope it ends up being something easy and inexpensive to fix.:)
Jerry
 
jleiwig said:
If your heater doesn't have a standing pilot light, but electronic ignition it's quite possible that the sensor to check for combustion is dirty causing a false reading. I had the same problem as your explaining, took apart the furnance and cleaned the sensor with some sand paper and it works fine.
Click to expand...

I had the same problem earlier in the Winter. Cleaning the sensor gave me another week, until the service parts were in.
 
Depending on the heater type there is a thermostat in the heater itself. basically what it is doing is making sure the heat box does not get to hot. My heater is gas. The thermocouple sets in the pilot light. the heat from that flame sends a current to the gas gauge that tells it that if it releases gas there is a flame to ignite it. if this thermocouple fails the heater will not come on at all. So lets assume everything is fine in that department. So from there the gas gauge releases gas and the pilot ignites it. this then heats the heat box or heat transfer device. the burner will actually be working for a while before the fan comes on giving it time to heat up enough. when the box is hot enough the fan comes on passing air past the heat box so it can absorb the heat from the box. since the heat that is being taken away cannot be perfectly balanced with the heat being added. the heat box has a thermostat of it's own. if the temp int he heat box gets to high the flame will be shut down but the fan will keep running so that air is still taking heat away. The entire operation of your heater is a balance between the heat the burner is producing and the temperature of the air the fan is moving past the heat exchanger.
My first thought when I read your post was that the thermostat inside your heater has gone bad. when the heater comes on the stat tells the flame that it is to hot so the flame shuts down while the fan keeps running to cool things down. you are still getting enough movement in the stat for it to eventually tell the flame it is okay to burn again but is shutting off well before the heat exchanger really gets warmed up. If this contact between the stat and the heat box is dirty the others may have the correct fix in mind as well. as for the devise that sets in the pilot light. the heater would not turn on at all if that was the problem.
 
Well I guess it isn't stupid heater it's stupid ME.


Found someone to come out today. 2 weeks ago I switch to pleated filters. I guess you lose quite a bit of air flow to the unit from them. Well even though it was a new one 2 weeks ago, it had enough dirt it the unit couldn't get enough air so it was kicking a thermal protector off.

Only cost 3 dollars for new filters, 75 dollar service call and I couldn't go to work this morning and gave up a 4 hour overtime shift. Now I'm just mad at myself.
 
Hey Dustin, good you got it fixed! And good to see you posting. (you might have been, but I have been a bit scarce!) Cold here too, but you got us by a couple of degrees.
 
Down to -25 without wind chill factor tonight. It's suppose to warm up to 6 degrees for the high tomorrow.
My dog goes outside and hops around on 3 legs alternating 1 leg off the ground. If he is out by himself, I set a timer for 3 minutes. If I stand out there with him, he just looks at me and thinks we're going somewhere.(Like.. back inside!!!)
 
I kicked that arctic air mass your way.

Gonna be in the 40's here today. I'll be taking advantage of a relatively warm shop today, that's for sure. I'd actually rather be working on the AMM on my Saab, but the parts haven't arrived yet. :(
 
cowchaser said:
Found someone to come out today. 2 weeks ago I switch to pleated filters. I guess you lose quite a bit of air flow to the unit from them. Well even though it was a new one 2 weeks ago, it had enough dirt it the unit couldn't get enough air so it was kicking a thermal protector off.
Click to expand...

Do you have the lathe next to the return vent or something? That's a lot of crud in the air, or in the return duct.
 
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