Abe75

I have an old GE furnace. I understand that if the burners do not light, it is a problem with the gas valve. I have the opposite problem. Once the burners fire up, they stay on unless I turn them off.
Do I need a new gas valve?

yuri

Where do you live? The GEs in my area are over 40 yrs old. How do you turn the burners off, with the manual gas valve?

Abe75

I live in Pittsburgh.
The manual gas valve turns on the pilot and the burners.
Once the pilot is lit, I turn the valve to "on". The burners fire up and then stay on unless I turn the valve back to pilot, or off.

yuri

If you disconnect the 2 power wires to the valve and it stays on then it is stuck open. If it is the huge original gas valve it is due for replacement. The replacement valve is a lot smaller and needs a gas fitter to alter the piping. That furnace is likely to have a cracked heat exchanger if it is as old as I think. Post some pics of the gas valve and furnace.

mindcandy30

Funny .. I found this thread when researching the *exact* same problem.

Our GE Furnace was a LD21, the Gas valve is a "Controls Corp. of America" CC166EM

It's definitely a bad valve .. replace it ASAP because if your design is anything like ours, the huge safety flaw is if electrical power is removed from the furnace, the burner will continue to fire (the safety cut-off interrupts control power to the valve's 24v circuit, not the pilot safety circuit as in modern units). Thus you'd have fire and no blower, with nothing to turn it off other than the fire department when they show up an hour later.

Anyway .. to save you some leg-work .. here are compatible replacements assuming your GE is the same valve.

CC166EM can be :

Uni-line/Robertshaw 720-402
Honneywell V800A1070
White/Rogers 36C03-433

The White/Rogers unit was the only one I was able to find at a warehouse here in town (fortunately I work for a big enough company that we're always listed at supply houses .. normally these places don't sell to "Joe the homeowner").

The new unit has a separate "safety circuit" where the high-limit switch in the heat exchanger can interrupt the pilot magnet, rather than just interrupt the 24vac valve solenoid.

Abe75

Thank you. I found the White/Rogers valve locally and had it installed. It works fine so far, and was much cheaper than the original equipment valve that I found online from a company in Florida.

mindcandy30

Abe75 : As we replaced our defective valve, I filed a complaint with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) figuring they'd just note it and move on .. but they took great interest in it and actually sent an investigator out to the house to examine the furnace and valve. You might also want to file a report, since your case is so similar. www.cpsc.gov

Yoyizit

I'm surprised they did anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
seems to be common in this country.

hvaclover

You filed on a forty year old furnace?

That has got to be a new record for unrealistic mechanical expectations.

Did it occur to you that after so many years that the part would simply go bad and malfunction? Yeah, they do that and it's not related to any manufacturer defect. Magnetic valves open and close and after so many years the valve just jams open or closed. No rocket science there.

It must have been a slow day CPSC. Normal wear and tear isn't the jurisdiction of any government agency on products so old they should be retired.

What a waste of tax payer money.

__________________
Just slow, not stupid.

beenthere

CSPS:
I have a 40 year old furnace. It had a gas valve that was unsafe.
And the company that made it sold out over 20 years ago.


Sorry to poke fun at you.
They could put out a safety advisory.
But furnaces aren't tracked like cars. So they can't do a recall, or safety advisory like with a car, and have all owners tracked down.

While diligent, in reporting it. That gas valve set up hasn't been used on new equipment for a long long time.

And any 40 year old furnace should be retired. For its inefficiency alone.

hvaclover

Good 'ol Been...always there to temper the pointed responses and to protect people from themselves...Oiy.

__________________
Just slow, not stupid.

beenthere

Most safety recalls/advisories. Are made after damage has been done.
So nothing wrong with a persons good intentions. In trying to prevent damage to other peoples property or life.

40 years, is a bit too late though for much, if anything to be done about it though.

I don't see them forcing people with Chinese made drywall, having to remove and replace it.

So some safety issues are not attended to, by anyone.

Yoyizit

Replacement age is less than or equal to wearout age.

Normal wearout shows an increasing failure rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
HVAC equip. replacement ages don't show that increasing failure rate.

The HVAC replacement age that shows up the most is 20 years old, probably for psych reasons.

A 40 YO unit has outlived 85% of HVAC stuff.



1000 people dying per day in the US from smoking-related issues tops my list.

Imagine what would happen if two jumbo jets [with 500 people each] crashed, every single day. Even the most corrupt senator would call for hearings, and the FAA [a captive agency?] would be hung out to dry.

beenthere

If you added up all the numbers of all the people that die everyday from this that and the other thing.
We would be having a world population decrease.
But, instead, we have a world population increase.

If 1000 people in the same city, dropped dead from smoking on the same day. Then they would have an investigation.

beenthere

I might be 1 of those 1000 that died from cigg smoke today.