CaseyMII
03-27-2012, 12:00 AM
Hello everyone,
My wife and I bought our first house a year ago and we are coming up on the end of our home warranty in a few days. We've been experiencing some trouble with our combined gas furnace/AC unit (Goodman model PGB036100-1). It's about 13 years old and not exactly top-of-the-line, so we knew it was on its way out.
What's been happening is when we switch from AC to heat, the blower sometimes just doesn't kick on. It will come on fine when set to "Auto" when cooling, but when heating, the furnace will just burn gas and never blow air. We had this same problem earlier in the year and had the only outfit that our home warranty uses come out to look at it. The guy tried to sell me some line about how the blower fan was so dirty that it wouldn't come on.
Now, I'm not a licensed tech, but I am a mechanical engineer and have a good idea how motors and pumps work, and I feel like someone is trying to rob me. I've seen some of the pictures posted on this site about horror stories and blower wheels, but ours was nowhere near dirty enough to physically stop it turning (I cleaned it out with a toothbrush and my shop vac in about 20 minutes, something the tech wanted to charge me $ for). After working for 3 hours, he found a problem with the control board (I was on the phone with my wife as he told her that there was a faulty connection), but suddenly changed his mind and went with the blower story, saying that since nothing was mechanically or electrically wrong that the warranty wouldn't cover it. When I cleaned it, I checked rotation and was amazed at how easily the blower wheel spun despite how little maintenance the unit must have had.
Am I crazy or overly paranoid? I get the feeling it must be an issue with the control board or some electrical connection, because now the fan isn't even coming on when the thermostat is set to anything but "Auto" while cooling. When I cleaned out the blower last time, I also cleaned off the auxiliary limit switch and the issue seemed to resolve itself for a few months (though that should only affect whether gas gets to the heat exchanger, not whether the blower turns on, right?).
On a different note (if all of this just ends in me paying for another unit out of pocket), does anyone have any general advice on a good system/vendor/contractor in VA?
My wife and I bought our first house a year ago and we are coming up on the end of our home warranty in a few days. We've been experiencing some trouble with our combined gas furnace/AC unit (Goodman model PGB036100-1). It's about 13 years old and not exactly top-of-the-line, so we knew it was on its way out.
What's been happening is when we switch from AC to heat, the blower sometimes just doesn't kick on. It will come on fine when set to "Auto" when cooling, but when heating, the furnace will just burn gas and never blow air. We had this same problem earlier in the year and had the only outfit that our home warranty uses come out to look at it. The guy tried to sell me some line about how the blower fan was so dirty that it wouldn't come on.
Now, I'm not a licensed tech, but I am a mechanical engineer and have a good idea how motors and pumps work, and I feel like someone is trying to rob me. I've seen some of the pictures posted on this site about horror stories and blower wheels, but ours was nowhere near dirty enough to physically stop it turning (I cleaned it out with a toothbrush and my shop vac in about 20 minutes, something the tech wanted to charge me $ for). After working for 3 hours, he found a problem with the control board (I was on the phone with my wife as he told her that there was a faulty connection), but suddenly changed his mind and went with the blower story, saying that since nothing was mechanically or electrically wrong that the warranty wouldn't cover it. When I cleaned it, I checked rotation and was amazed at how easily the blower wheel spun despite how little maintenance the unit must have had.
Am I crazy or overly paranoid? I get the feeling it must be an issue with the control board or some electrical connection, because now the fan isn't even coming on when the thermostat is set to anything but "Auto" while cooling. When I cleaned out the blower last time, I also cleaned off the auxiliary limit switch and the issue seemed to resolve itself for a few months (though that should only affect whether gas gets to the heat exchanger, not whether the blower turns on, right?).
On a different note (if all of this just ends in me paying for another unit out of pocket), does anyone have any general advice on a good system/vendor/contractor in VA?