Furnace is not working :-(
 

Woke up this morning and feel a little bit cold. No heat come out of the vent.

Call around and seems everyone is busy with Xmas. Anyone know a reliable furnace repairer in Calgary that can come today?

Thanks

Thats terrible. What timing too.. :sad: Hope you find some one to fix it!

Here's something to try in the meantime (you have nothing to lose to try this .. maybe save yourself $200 in an emergency callout).

A lot of times problems with furnaces are dirty flame sensors. Open up the unit and look for what looks like a barbecue starter probe, a metal rod that goes to one of the burners. On mine it's on the far left burner. Undo this, take it out, and take a dry sponge or something midly abrasive and scrub that sucker. Maybe take some really really fine sandpaper if you see actual carbon scoring on it. But don't scratch it, you want the metal intact but any buildup or residue on it gone.

Put it back together and see if the furnace works properly after that.

Good luck!

+1 Rep point for you! ;)

^^^^^^^ +1 on that one, done it a few times and works like a charm.

Damn too late again...

Do not use sandpaper. Just regular paper will do, if you scratch the flame rod the signal receiver by the module will be changed and it will not work. Although a good point Tony.
Tai, if you need a hand give me a call or pm me, I might be able to walk you through it if you feel like tackling it. I do this for a living(I teach plumbing/gasfitting and heating at NAIT), unfortunately I do not know anybody in cowtown to recommend.

Thanks for the tip but there is no flames come out of burmer at all. So what should i do?

Ill pm you my number.
First I would do a hard reset on the module, there should be a power switch near your furnace. Just shut it off and turn it back on. This should reset the module, and the furnace will start through a cycle.
If a safety switch was tripped it will try to fire again, if the manual reset switch was tripped(flame rollout switch) it will have to be manually reset, this off course is telling you a bigger problem though. I would watch the furnace, just to get the temp up in the house but would definitely call someone in if this happened, as there is a problem that has to be solved.
Make of furnace and age will help me as well.
Furnace should go through a pre-purge from anywhere from 30-90 secs before trying to fire.
It may be something as easy as the door has vibrated loose and it cut the power to the gas valve.
On newer furnaces there is a troubleshooting led light that will flash the problem, might be worth a look as well.

Thanks everyone for your help especially Tony and Bob . It is awesome to have member like this on this board. Anyway, a furnace guy called me back and he came.

Well, the problem is the safe switch has burned out because i did not replace filter soon enough ( i only replace filter when my thermostat tell me Lol) apparently you have to replace those stupid expensive 3M filter more frequently than the cheaper one. So he advised me buy a cheap filter and replace it more frequently.

So now he is going to get part and get it replaced.

Total damage: 200 bucks :-)

Lesson learned: replace your furnace filter frequently and don't buy expensive filter.

Also, i think it also part of the HRV, I did not have to replace my furnace like 6 months and it was still kind of clean before i got my HRV installed. So if you have HRV installed, i think you have to replace filter more frequently. Bob, what do you think?

If you still cant find anyone i can get one of our techs to come out this evening
we have no overtime charges
or i can help you on the phone
403-457-1188/ HighTemp.ca
Jim

dude, it's like 6 degrees out. Why do you need your furnace on???? :lol:

want to swap house?

If you didn't live in Ardrie I would consider it!

Ouch

could see tripping out but why would the switch burn out from a dirty filter?

beat me, i just listen to whatever the guy told me lol

$200 is not bad Tai, last yr our boiler went down on New Years Eve when it was -30, it controls all our heat for air exchanger, in floor & pool.

Damage was $1200 and it was just a gas valve that cost $25 the rest was labour.:surprise:

That hurt!!

took a long time to figure out it was the gas valve?

Just about crapped my pants when I seen the bill.

Not really, after hrs call out, first guy had it figured in less then an hr but the part needed was the only thing he didn't bring. So they sent another guy out with the part & charged we for both guys. I argued about the bill for a couple weeks but obviously didn't win.

Ouch

Yikes thats Highway robbery!

Not to mention that who ever put in the boiler & piping did it all wrong & to get it redone correctly its $14k

I won't leave without payment on an after hours no heat call. I've pulled parts back out before. Been burned too many times.

Ps scratching a flame sensor won't hurt it. Might cause it to get dirty faster, but it will work fine no matter what you clean it with.

If you scratch the flame rod with sandpaper, you will change the ratio of 1:4, therefore the rectified flame signal will not be correct when it returns to the module and the furnace will lock out because it cannot prove flame. So, scratching the flame rod does make a difference, and I have no idea how scratching it would make it get dirtier faster.
Just my 2 cents.

Well FWIW, in my defense, when I suggested sandpaper, in my mind I was suggesting the black sandpaper of several-hundred grit like 400 or 600 or something. Admittedly, I didn't actually type it in because it was perfectly clear to ME what I meant and gosh darn it all aren't I a reel gud communicatorator? (Don't answer that plz. It's Christmas. Okthxbai.) Anyhow with that kind of sandpaper you're not going to scratch the metal.

I didn't realize you can burn your furnace out by being too late on replacing the filter. I thought maybe the consequence would have been dusty air or just less air turnover. I've learned something new..

Im not trying to be an ass Tony, i hope thats not what came across. I was just trying to state that using sandpaper is not a good idea.
To have someone say it won't do anything to the rod is just wrong, and it will have to be another component that will have to be replaced at the customers expense. In my opinion, poor advice.
Thats the problem with posting, you can read into it.