One furnace question and one thermostat question - DIY Chatroom

lh0628 · 10-10-2007, 05:45 PM

1. Hello a question about furnace. The furnace in my house has two gas valves, the one on the left always light right away; on the other hand, the one on the right doesn't! It takes a second or two longer than the left one after gas is released. And even worse, sometimes it doesn't light at all, maybe after a few tries, I had to recycle the furnace occasionally because of this.

My question is, do I have a bad/dirty gas valve? Can it be cleaned or does it need replacing?

2. Also another question about my thermostat, it's a NOVA 5+1+1 (crap I know), the temp reading is always a few degrees higher than the actual temp, I guess there's no way to adjust this?

Also our second floor is about 5 degrees warmer than the main floor, I guess this is because warmer air goes up. But is there a way to change this? maybe a huge fan somewhere along the stairs?

I apologize for asking silly questions again but for the newbie I am

Thank you.

scorrpio · 10-11-2007, 11:02 AM

1. Looks like some cleaning is in order.
2. I am not familiar with your 'stat model. My units (RiteTemp touchscreen programmable) have a temp reading adjustment feature. But you could simply set target temp a few degrees higher to compensate.
3. You could fiddle with 2nd floor registers and partially close them so that you have less warm air going to 2nd floor.

dmaceld · 10-11-2007, 11:49 PM

Does the furnace shut down automatically when the second burner doesn't light? Is that why you have to recycle it?

If that's the case you need to get a furnace man in there fast. Any time you have an open gas valve without ignition in the prescribed time you are risking an explosion. That furnace is telling you something is not right. Don't mess around trying to do a fix on the cheap.

You might have something like a burned out combustion chamber that causes the flame to not burn correctly and that's why the second burner doesn't light. Do you ever detect the odor of gas in the house?

lh0628 · 10-11-2007, 11:57 PM

Thank you for your replies!

Scorrpio, I'll go with the simple solution and just adjust the temp a few degrees higher, but where is this 2nd floor register thing? Is it on the furnace itself or is there an actual sensor somewhere in the air vent?

dmaceld, the furnace tries to light 3 times, and if all 3 failed, the blower fan will go off, everything goes off, but the indicator light would blink, normally it's solid. I don't think I'll have an explosion though, because only a small amount of gas is released each of the 3 times, and if they all fail, the furnace won't release any more gas.

How do I go about cleaning my furnace? Is this something I can do myself or does it require special tools for cleaning air vents etc, which I imagine special tools will be required.

Thank you again for helping!

dmaceld · 10-12-2007, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lh0628

How do I go about cleaning my furnace?

The short answer is, you don't. Cleaning may or may not be the answer. The problem is most likely inside the furnace, as in where the fire is. It isn't so much special tools required to get in there, but knowing how to get in there and what to look for. Not a DIY job for the average person. Once again, I emphasize, the furnace shutting itself down is telling you it has a serious problem, and needs some serious looking at. To put it bluntly, judging from the nature of your questions you are not the one to do it.