Comfortmaker Furnace Trouble

[wcarter77]

My furnace works fine while it's running. Periodically it won't kick on. Today I had my thermostat set on 72, even though the temp fell to 65 in the room, the furnace never kicked on. When it does this, i can flip the power switch off, then back on again, and it seems to work fine for a while after that. But it seems every morning I wake up to 60 degrees. Help me please

Will Carter

[RosieRiveter]

I am having the same problem. Any clue yet? Furnace doesn't kick on unless I turn the thermostat up and down about four times. Although at night it must be coming on because it doesn't drop below 60 degrees but it never goes above 64 no matter what the thermostat is set at.
Thanks for any help.

[jhiehle]

I'm having the same problem as well. I have to manually turn the unit off and cycle the power and it will almost always come back to life. Although running down stairs under the house is getting old in the cold. Any ideas?

thanks,
justin

[Dean]

Sounds like the furnace is locking out which is a safety feature telling you there is a problem that would be unsafe if the furnace continued to operate.

It could be something as simple as a flame sensor that has gone bad or maybe needs cleaning with steel wool, a bad ignition module, a problem with the flue exhaust not working properly, low gas pressure. heck I guess it could be a lot of things.

You probably should call a Comfortmaker service company and have it checked.

[wcarter77]

Ok, after suffering out this nightmare, Its finally fixed. I'd love to tell you about the technician I had come look at my furnace, and tried to convince me that my 1992 comfortmaker was just too old for any further repairs and should be replaced immediately. But since I could go on forever, I won't mention it.

Turns out that by removing the flame sensor, and cleaning it with some fine sandpaper, then reinstalling it, completely solved my troubles. Took about 2 minutes to do this and I'm utterly schocked that my problem turned out to be so minor.

The only symptoms I noticed at first was that I would wake up, and the entire house would be extremely cold, the furnace having not kicked on the whole night. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the pilot would light, then after a couple seconds just stop. It would sometimes repeat this cycle many times before the whole furnace would lock out and not do anything. After cleaning the flame sensor, the pilot comes on, burners come on, blower starts, house gets warm, and Im happy as a little booy in a candy store.

Thanks alot for the help!

Will Carter

[mrcaptainbob]

Well, heck, Will, it's not like that technician was ENTIRELY wrong. After all, a new furnace would've also fixed that problem!! Similar instance happened to us when we were on vacation. Neighbors were watching the house and noticed the furnace wasn't working. A repair technician came out and fixed it. And, yes, we were pleased that the place didn't freeze while we were gone for two weeks. But, it was the $4.95 electric eye on the oil furnace that was replaced. But the bill was for a couple hundred and change. Travel time? 'expertise'? The bill claimed 45 an hour for travel....where did all the extra money come in? I called and talked with the owner and he couldn't get past being hot. So I just sent him what I felt was fair and maybe even a bit generous. I should've mailed him the old electric eye, as it wsa still good. Just dusty lens. I swapped them out just to see what it was about....it worked for fine. Pitiful.

[Hube]

So once again it proves that regular yearly maintenance (especially an oil burner) can help avoid these "breakdowns".
Note; on an oil fired furnace when the 'cad cell' (electric eye) gets prematurely dirty and prevents the burner from firing, usually means your system is not tuned -up according to specs.(faulty air/fuel ratio,faulty gapped electrodes, weak ignition, dirty nozzle, dirty oil filter, faulty barometric setting,etc,etc.
Gas furnace's need regular maintenance too,although maybe not as often as oil furnaces require.
Again,a YEARLY tune-up service will usually eliminate these problems.

[harrisj55]

You are the third person I have found on the web that has suggested to clean the flame sensor. I am pretty ignorant when it comes to furnaces, -- where is the flame sensor?