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Need help with Payne Furnace - Urgent!

3K views 34 replies 5 participants last post by  T Manzo 
#1 ·
Hi everyone, I've just joined these forums and I've tried to brush myself up on the rules here so please forgive me if this is in the wrong section!

To put it shortly, I need serious help with this Payne furnace and would be incredibly grateful if anyone could help me.

I am dealing with this unit: Payne Furnace Model PG8JAA024070ADJA

Brief intro story: I'm a homeowner in Daly City. Two years ago I bought a fixer upper nightmare house because the real estate market is crazy here and it's all I could afford (even with two incomes and a well paying job) I've mostly spent my time repairing cobbled up DIY jobs that the previous owner did to just about everything. I never intended to use the HVAC that came with the house even though the sellers assured me it was fine. However a cold snap is coming through the area, and combined with the El Nino storm approaching, I had to try. I recently had to pay for a new roof and driveway, so I'm totally out of funds to replace this heater.

After using it for a week, the first major issue became apparent. See the attached pictures. The exhaust pipe is leaking some corrosive condensation. This can't be safe!

On further investigation it seems the previous owner spliced the exhaust for this heater into an old terracotta pipe which I'm sure is not up to code.

Is there anything I can do to fix this? Could I run some new pipe for the exhaust myself? I'm totally tapped out of cash right now having just dropped $10k on a roof, and it's getting colder by the day! Any help would be very appreciated!

Other note: I would consider my level of skill to be moderate to advanced. My father-in-law is an electrician and together we've re-wired the entire house ourselves. However I know nothing about furnaces or HVAC systems.
 

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#2 · (Edited)
You MUST have a B vent from the furnace to the chimney which should be B vent also. The exhaust flue gases are cooler on mid efficiency furnaces and will cool down and condense in the venting and chimney. Nothing you can do about it. It is not hard to work with as it has snap clamps to connect it but ideally should be done by a chimney company or licensed gas fitter for code/liability reasons. At least where I am you cannot DIY.

That corrosion can damage the furnace too.

B vent is 2 pipes with a air gap between. Google: B vent pipe>Images
 

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#3 ·
You MUST have a B vent from the furnace to the chimney which should be B vent also. The exhaust flue gases are cooler on mid efficiency furnaces and will cool down and condense in the venting and chimney. Nothing you can do about it.

B vent is 2 pipes with a air gap between. Google: B vent pipe
Good to know, thank you! Would it be possible to get this B Vent, and run it out the side of the house or something, bypassing the existing chimney?
 
#6 · (Edited)
You may be able to run it out the side of the house and then up, depending on your local gas and bldg codes. It is ugly and not recommended but I have seen it done. Some people make a chase outside later to cover it up. You should check the codes. In the US there is a lot a DIYer can do with gas but obviously you need to know exactly how. In Canada we use gas fitters for most everything or licensed chimney companies for liability reasons.

There are clearance codes to roof lines etc.
 
#4 · (Edited)
You need to get a tech out to deal with the venting and a possible combustion issue. (gas pressure and other things should be checked)

There should never be condensation in the venting of a 80% efficient furnace - who knows what the heck they did, if they even used the right materials to vent the furnace, followed the codes. Looks like a single wall pipe, it could very well be going into a chimney with no liner.

if the furnace hasn't been damaged you can probably keep it for now, provided that the venting can be fixed.

the furnace doesn't look old.
 
#9 ·
Looks HORRIBLE and totally unsafe. We don't have terracotta pipe where I am. Masonry chimneys from oil but no terracotta. Ours are glazed 8" square clay tile liners and pretty much obsolete. We drop a B vent down them.

If yours collapses then you will have no heat or bigger problems like flame rollout.
 
#10 ·
Looks HORRIBLE. We don't have terracotta pipe where I am. Masonry chimneys from oil but no terracotta. Ours are glazed 8" square clay tile liners and pretty much obsolete. We drop a B vent down them.
That's what I figured. They really did a terrible job with this. I believe they did this installation about 6 or 7 years ago. I was hoping to figure out a way to fix this myself but it seems like that might not be possible!
 
#14 · (Edited)
Is it going up the chimney or is that a vent from the roof?

Check the cost of fixing up the venting and get the furnace thoroughly checked out too. Spending money on a chimney may not be worth it; sometimes it may make more economic sense to just go high efficiency.

The builders in ontario since the mid 90s have been putting high efficiency furnaces in new houses to save money on a chimney/b-vent.

Now you can't buy anything lower than 90%.

Spend near $1000 + / - on venting for a mid efficiency furnace out of warranty or maybe $3000+ on a new 90%. Tough call.

Long term a new 90% could be a better deal, but then there are the upfront costs to deal with.
 
#15 ·
Is it going up the chimney or is that a vent from the roof?

Check the cost of fixing up the venting and get the furnace thoroughly checked out too. Spending money on a chimney may not be worth it; sometimes it may make more economic sense to just go high efficiency.

The builders in ontario since the mid 90s have been putting high efficiency furnaces in new houses to save money on a chimney/b-vent.

Now you can't buy anything lower than 90%.
It doesn't go up the chimney, it just plugs into it. :vs_worry:
 
#16 ·
Daly City, Cali? right.

If you have a moderate climate then a high efficiency furnace is not your main concern. AC is. Probably as rare as hens teeth in California. I would get a chimney and use what you have. Won't burn/save enough gas $$ to warrant getting rid of a reasonably still good furnace.
 
#18 ·
What's the housing market like in your area? Where I am there are 800-1200 sq ft homes going for 900k, and fixer uppers needing new everything going for 700. the times we live in suck.
 
#19 ·
What's the housing market like in your area? Where I am there are 800-1200 sq ft homes going for 900k, and fixer uppers needing new everything going for 700.
It's very similar to those prices. In Daly City, fixer uppers, 3 bed 1 bath, typically start at $699k and sell over asking. Go 10 minutes north into SF and that same sized house will be over a million. No hope for the middle class over here unless you want to spend years working on your house like I have chosen to do! :glasses:
 
#20 ·
Always amazes me why people want to live in Toronto or nearby GTA Greater Toronto Area as TO is full. Smog, never ending traffic jams. Have nothing better there than Winnipeg except a Pro baseball and basketball team. For that kind of money where I am you can have a nice new over 1000 sq ft house AND a cottage at a nice Lake.
 
#21 · (Edited)
Jobs, public transit, access to services, community, walkable communities - that's why people go to the city. There's no community in the suburbs, at least from what i've been exposed to.

Go outside the urban centers and costs shift to transportation, right?

It's ultra-low interest rates and demand for property that's pushing prices up i think. Also boomer parents who had a lot of success due to the circumstances pushing their kids to buy property, even giving money.

I don't think being in the housing market is synonymous with being middle class; a house or condo is just a status symbol, I'm betting that a lot of new buyers these days don't have a clue about house construction, maintenance, or how real estate agents/home inspectors collude with each other.

Lots of people do things that aren't all they're cracked up to be just because it's expected or normal.
 
#24 · (Edited)
The one and only time I had an HVAC specalist look at this mess he said it's probably the worst furnace installation he's ever seen. Here are some more pictures of the intake and leaking exhaust flue. All in the same part of the wall...:vs_mad:

Have any of you ever seen an installation this ridiculous? And correct me if I'm wrong, but if the exhaust from the furnace contains carbon monoxide and that was leaking, in the same area where the furnace draws it's air from.... how close was thing to blowing itself up? I believe the previous owner used it like this for at least 5 years before I bought the house.
 

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#26 ·
It won't blow itself up...but yes on the CO being drawn into the return path and then into your house. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!

(If you can find out who the contractor was that did that crap, HVACGIRL1 in a recent post is looking for a cheap price)
:biggrin2:

That would be the previous owner who installed it himself. Sadly not all DIY'ers know when to ask for help...
 
#27 · (Edited)
The return air with the filter just sitting there is just bloody awful. The rusting single wall pipe in the return air path just adds insult to injury.

The furnace may have been cycling on high limit for years with that single round return. What size is it 8"? 12"?

You may want to set up some temporarily electric heat if it doesn't get really cold, like a construction heater which plugs into a stove outlet. Wait until you have the funds if you could survive the winter, than get it re-done properly.

(If you can find out who the contractor was that did that crap, HVACGIRL1 in a recent post is looking for a cheap price)
Why get into that? If you want to start bashing go on to hvac-talk; plenty of mud slinging at homeowners who ask questions there, little much else.
 
#29 · (Edited)
You'll probably need at least 3 times as much return to make that furnace run right. That's good for what, like 300-400 cfm maximum? The 80 000 btu mid needs 1000+.

Is the return noisy?

This furnace may have gotten damaged, over heating for years. It's a good idea to pull the blower assembly and inspect.
 
#31 ·
Limit trips cause the burners to cycle off, fan continue to run. When the limit resets itself the burners come back on, and it can go on and on for years until the unit dies from being constantly overheated.

If the furnace is oversized, it may not run long enough to cycle on limit.

If the previous owner did the ductwork, not just the return - well, you're in for a really huge project or huge expense. The furnace is cheaper than the ducts.
 
#32 ·
Your furnace can be side wall vented. it would require the addition of a power venter. The inducer in the furnace is not a power venter, so it can not be used as such.

The next thing you can do. Is drop a liner down the terracotta chimney.

You need to separate that return cavity from the chimney area, it is very dangerous as has already been pointed out. And is probably also contributing to the flue condensation.
 
#34 ·
They are interlocked. A proving switch on the power venter must close in order for the furnace to run in heat mode.

They've been used on gas furnaces to side wall vent them for more then 40 years that I know of.

They can be loud or vibrate a lot if not installed properly.
 
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