New duel fuel Amana hvacs making family sick...at wits end.

[Sensitive gal]

I didn't finish my thought....I bet the exhaust is getting sucked into our house every night through the fireplace vents.

[hvacrmedic]

The comment about burning eyes and itching bodies leads me to believe that the problem is low humidity and "dry skin". Also, if cigarette smoke is infiltrating from outdoors that readily, then this means that outside air is also infiltrating readily, which in turn yields low humidity in the house during heating season. It's possible that the new units' longer run times with increased airflow are producing increased mechanical infiltration vs the older furnaces.

[catmanacman]

take a couple of pics for us to see the install ,im betting in the end its not the unit or the install . you said its a dual fuel is the gas furnace even running if it is have the installer lower you balance so the furnace wont run at all and see what happens

[timebuilder]

I would think that a hygienist would have all of the equipment needed to pinpoint your physiological reaction.

It troubles me that this person did not identify a cause.

Let us know what is found. Thanks.

[beenthere]

Might want to have your duct work rechecked for leaks. Could be that your supply duct is leaking more air out then your return is leaking in. Which will cause your house to go into a negative pressure, and help to draw more outside air in, including more air in through your fireplace. Which may be drawing in exhaust fumes.

Your furnaces exhaust may not have any Co in it. And even if it does, by the time its drawn into your home, it may be less then 1 PPM, which most CO detectors won't register.

[vstech]

I just got to thinking.... Our PVC pipe that sends the exhaust from the furnace outside is placed not far away from our fireplace and I could just smell the smoke from my husbands cigarette as he smoked it outside on the back porch coming through the vents of the fireplace into the living room. This pipe is new because our old furnace was connected to the hot water heater exhaust flue. I bet that is it!! I will keep you guys posted....thank you! my 6 and 9 year old little girls will thank you too since they are suffering immensely too....as well as my dog. All of the expensive VOC tests I had ran and none of them had carbon dioxide on the panel. Ugh.

how many pvc pipes are out by the fireplace? if the furnace is drawing combustion air from the interior of the house, then the fireplace could indeed be drawing the flue back in...

[jrbenny]

Instead of us all guessing, why don't you call Amana Consumer Affairs and get their technical staff involved?

1-877-254-4729

[Sensitive gal]

I will take pictures and post today. I thought it was dry skin too, but humidifiers brought humidity to 40 up from 20 and as it went up our symptoms got noticeably worse. Research said carbon monoxide mixed with water vapor creates carbon dioxide and hydrogen....carbon dioxide mixed with water vapor creates carbonic acid...which could be the culprit in the burning and itching eyes/body. The installer is coming out today and bringing his Carbon monoxide monitor that realizes down to 2ppm. It's one PVC pipe and its about 4ft from the bottom access of the gas fireplace. Even when the unit is off so much air is brought in through the vents on the front of the fireplace it almost blows the flame on a lighter out. With the industrial hygienist I told him we were sensitive to chemicals and VOCs so he took straight off on that tangent because that seemed logical at the time with the introduction of mastic and new duct tape. If this chronic low level carbon monoxide turns out to not be the case I will definitely be calling the Amana Consumer Affairs.....thank you all so much. I'm so glad I posted here. Will keep you posted later today.

[pauls heating &]

how does amana customer affairs have any connection to your fireplace drawing in furnace exhaust ? id contact installers to remedy install,

[pacnw]

First, it is a Carbon Monoxide, CO, detector.

Second, you cannot find the low level units in the retail stores, you need to find a Pro that is certified in Carbon Monoxide testing.

Third, from the little details provided I have some concern about air infiltration and the location of the new exhaust.

Finally, you said it is duel fuel. That means a heat pump and gas furnace. Does this happen with just the gas furnace or the heat pump, too?

Will wait for photos before making any other comments.

[jrbenny]

how does amana customer affairs have any connection to your fireplace drawing in furnace exhaust ? id contact installers to remedy install,

I presumed she had actually called the installer. Silly presumption.

[thermojohn]

I presumed she had actually called the installer. Silly presumption.

It wasn't a presumption.... According to her posts, she did, and they were clueless as to what was going on.

[jrbenny]

It wasn't a presumption.... According to her posts, she did, and they were clueless as to what was going on.

So a call to consumer affairs isn't absurd. This is certainly something that would be of interest to them.