Hot surface ignitors bad due to dirty filters

[caliweath33]

I was at a call today, 2 story house with 2 units. Both ignitors bad and both had been replaced November last year.
Walk in house dwnstrs has mstr area filter and main hallway filter,both filthy dirty. Upstairs has 2 filters, filthy all black. Top it off h/o had other company install these 4 or 5 inch pleated filters in all return airs. And I found out the company only changes them 1 time per year. First thing I thought of is airflow restriction=problems. Upstrs. unit bad ignitor again and dwnstrs unit in safety lockout mode. Any thoughts? Lennox g4ouh60c for both floors. Live in Houston.

[air of honesty]

The filter grills should no longer have any filters in them. They are just r/a's now. Once a year on a system that small should be jake if the house doesn't have serious infiltration issues. The restriction from double filtering has the filters at the grill hoovering everything in sight, and the HO has probably forgotten about them by now, so unchanged.

Don't know about the bad ingitors, but overheating could have caused the lockout. Are these units vibrating excessively? Why have the ignitors failed? Could just be bad practice, handling the surface of the ignitor put body oil on them, leading to premature failure. You have to handle them like halogen bulbs, no skin contact.

[caliweath33]

No, these filters are installed right at the r/a grills as opposed to a media filter rack @furnace. Handled ignitor very carefully today. Last call in Nov. other tech replaced both ignitors. My conclusion is the only common denominator is very dirty filters restricting airflow causing it to short cycle in heat mode cutting ignitor lifespan in half. Even if this is just a hunch still there will be problems and what made me upset was that homeowner saw filters, called his filter company and was made to believe filters were clean from a guy on the phone. Could not understand that. Anyway thats gonna get very ugly during summer when his units freeze up and we try to tell him restriction of airflow and possibly dirt ecoil while the filter guy is on phone saying opposite.

[air of honesty]

They put pleated blocks in existing fg? What size grill, what size returns?

[vettech]

Bad ignitor probably came with a hairline crack or something or from bad handling like air of honesty said. Downstairs unit you gave no info at all other than it was locked out. What was the code given for the lockout and what did you check. Also HO does not need their "prefilters" in the grill. The 5" filters only have to be changed once or twice a year.

[caliweath33]

There is not much info to give on dwnstrs. unit. Last Nov. Technician came out and c/o ignitors on both systems. Now a little over 2 months later both units having problems again. Could be that last technician handled ignitors the wrong way but if you would be at that house you would see those thick filters all black covered with dust,dirt,lint,dog hair,etc... Returns only have 1 filter in each grill. What I mean by that is very simple setup, instead of having regular filter they had a company go out install a frame thick enough to hold new 5 inch filters. In other words no media filter @ furnace. Never said that. They have correct amount of filters, I never said anything but filters missing. What I said was the filters they have now are filthy dirty,super thick, and causing airflow restriction and I believe this is the reason of both systems failing at the same time. During summer he will see.
Upstairs filter size was like 20x25 could be wrong, and downstairs was 20x30 in hallway and mstr.bed dont know h/o had his wife in there and kept door closed but I imagine it is like a 12x24 or 16x?.

[air of honesty]

Sounds to me like this place might have serious infiltration problems. With both fans 'on', go the front door, open, then reduce to about a 1" crack. If there is a significant breeze blowing in on your palm, then the place has major duct loss and is sucking everything in Dodge in thru the cracks and taking it straight to the filters.

Besides, the media filters SHOULD have been installed at the furnace to reduce the velocity at all intakes and the static the furnace has to deal with. This was a bad application and will never be as good as a proper install, IMHO.