Furnace replacement recommendations

[msommers]

We have a John Wood now. No idea where that ranks or if they're kind of all the same

[BerserkerCatSplat]

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We have a John Wood now. No idea where that ranks or if they're kind of all the same

Anecdotally, our John Wood lasted 20 years, they seem to be good tanks if taken care of - ours needed a new dip tube after 15 years but that was about it. Our tank didn't actually go bad either, the copper inlet line started leaking and no plumber we spoke to wanted to touch a tank that old. I'd say it's worth looking at an anode replacement if you can swing it, though I recall the JW anodes are integrated into the inlet tube and might be a bitch to change.

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

Fuck we woke up at 4am with a strong smell of skunk, didn’t get around to finding someone to service the furnace this week but probably should have clearly. Sitting in the car waiting for an emergency call out now.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Fuck we woke up at 4am with a strong smell of skunk, didn’t get around to finding someone to service the furnace this week but probably should have clearly. Sitting in the car waiting for an emergency call out now.

What??
You think you have a skunk, a natural gas leak, or exhaust leak? The fire dept can check for two of those.
Maybe your neighbour is smoking weed. I've never heard someone describe the smell of exhaust or methane as "skunk".

[mr2mike]

Sir, you just did a Mar.

Skunks go by my cold air intake a few times.
I keep a plastic bag and elastic down there.
I smell it, I run down there and put the bag over the intake, elastic and all good.
Sometimes, ExtraSlow tries to use it for tests on new art room ideas too.

[Tik-Tok]

Shouldn't the intake be completely sealed? (on the inside of the house)

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

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What??
You think you have a skunk, a natural gas leak, or exhaust leak? The fire dept can check for two of those.
Maybe your neighbour is smoking weed. I've never heard someone describe the smell of exhaust or methane as "skunk".

Natty gas can smell like rotten eggs or a bit like skunk, in our case it looked like the furnace fired partially or started the blower and thought it lit but expelled some unburnt gas into the vents to the upstairs while it was having issues. The problem is it’s intermittent and I don’t know if the gas control valve is failing or if maybe the flame sensor is fucked. I did find the flame sensor resistance is almost non existent so I’ve got one from Amazon coming today. The flame sensor amperage was on the extreme edge of the low side too.

[ThePenIsMightier]

Yes, rotten eggs.

Shitty, so it wasn't just an art room skunk?
Hope it's not a trillion dollars to fix. At least it's not -40° I suppose....

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

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Yes, rotten eggs.

Shitty, so it wasn't just an art room skunk?
Hope it's not a trillion dollars to fix. At least it's not -40° I suppose....

The problem seems that it’s intermittently causing me issues so we haven’t found a direct cause yet. I talked to my neighbours this morning, no reports of skunk or Mary Jane smell overnight at their homes, one slept with their bedroom window open too. I don’t see any animal tracks anywhere either. I think it’s furnace related since it’s stopped working twice in the last 6 days prior to this and nothing else obvious seems to be taking place (skunk, my elderly neighbours smoking). My fiancé has also reported having headaches almost every day for the last 10 days, but our CO detector hasn’t gone off or anything. I’m going to buy a couple new Nest Smoke/CO detectors today just for safety in case we have other issues.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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The problem seems that it’s intermittently causing me issues so we haven’t found a direct cause yet. I talked to my neighbours this morning, no reports of skunk or Mary Jane smell overnight at their homes, one slept with their bedroom window open too. I don’t see any animal tracks anywhere either. I think it’s furnace related since it’s stopped working twice in the last 6 days prior to this and nothing else obvious seems to be taking place (skunk, my elderly neighbours smoking). My fiancé has also reported having headaches almost every day for the last 10 days, but our CO detector hasn’t gone off or anything. I’m going to buy a couple new Nest Smoke/CO detectors today just for safety in case we have other issues.

Holy shit, be careful!
CO poisoning builds up in humans, to an extent. Is accumulative the correct nerd word for that?
ATCO can come out with an extremely sensitive sniffer instrument to rule out piping leaks. Fire dept has extremely sensitive CO detector, as mentioned.


Aside:
I (*maybe) saved my friend's life once. She had lost the ability to smell mercaptan and she had a small gas leak in her house. I told her, she called ATCO and they confirmed and fixed the leak.
Support my Patreon.

[mr2mike]

Wouldn't a non emerg fire dept call have them come and check it out?
Wonder if your Ext vents are plugged?

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

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Wouldn't a non emerg fire dept call have them come and check it out?
Wonder if your Ext vents are plugged?

Atco came and found nothing leaking. I checked both exterior vents and they are free and clear, along with my dryer vent I cleaned last fall too. I replaced the flame sensor and so far nothing else has cropped up since yesterday morning. I have a feeling the gas valve is going to fail at some point though, I smelt just the slightest wiff of gas again when I pulled the front panel off to replace the flame sensor.

[StreetRacerX]

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Atco came and found nothing leaking. I checked both exterior vents and they are free and clear, along with my dryer vent I cleaned last fall too. I replaced the flame sensor and so far nothing else has cropped up since yesterday morning. I have a feeling the gas valve is going to fail at some point though, I smelt just the slightest wiff of gas again when I pulled the front panel off to replace the flame sensor.

I've walked into a home where a burnt control board on a furnace caused a very strong skunk like odor throughout the home, the damage on the board was quite severe. Blower motors that have seized/seizing/burning up tend to produce a strong burnt wiring/electronic smell.

[StreetRacerX]

Did some digging, it was also a Goodman furnace Model#GMSS960603BNAA
Damage visible top middle of board.

[Darell_n]

Looks like it reached peak planned obsolescence. Put a new board in to start again. Like pumping quarters into the arcade game as a kid.

[J.M.]

Hey all, anyone have experience with a Daikin brand furnace?

The Carrier one I have right now has a cracked heat exchanger.

[littledan]

I have a furnace that runs 20x25 filters, I think the filter slot is a total of 5" wide.

My issue is that several of the filters I had purchased are shorter dimension vertically than the slot and that ends up leaving a gap at the top. I would say the gap could be as much as 2cm on several of the filters I have tried.

So the last filter I used I taped a spacer of foam on the bottom, making sure to tape the living shit out of it with hd duck tape to make sure nothing would be sucked into my fan.

Does anyone else run into this issue and is there a better option than rigging up a spacer on the filter. Rig up a spacer on the cavity or something?

[killramos]

Instead of taping foam to the filter tape it to the furnace as a permanent solution.

Or buy filters that fit

[Darell_n]

I use 1" x 3/4" thick foam tape in my furnace to seal the filter, one strip on the bottom and one at the back of the housing.

[littledan]

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Or buy filters that fit

Thank you for the helpful suggestion! lol.

Turns out the 3M filters are 20x25" actual dimension whereas the generic ones are 19.5" thereby producing the gap. My FIL just gifted me like 16 of these 1" filters so damnit i'm going to make them work even if it costs me more time and money than buying the correct filters.