Amazing Stories From Service Calls

Plus, Joe Gorman's Experience with
His Own Brand New Home

Case #1

Joe Gorman's Personal Experience on his own New Home

I was fortunate enough to purchase a new two story home for my family two years ago.  For the first time in my career that I have ever seen this, the house was actually warmer down stairs than it was up on the second floor.  And the air conditioner was running full blast!  We were just not getting any air flow to more than 3/4's of the first floor of the house.

Here's what I found.

We have a 5 ton unit which puts out 2000 CFM (cubic feet of air per minute).

The furnace was rated to operate with a 1/2" of "Blood Pressure" or static pressure. 

Upon measuring the air flow getting in to the house from the duct system, I found that we were getting 1113 CFM out of the rated 2000 CFM - 56%!! (Not bad, I'm close to the national average.)

Our measured Blood Pressure was 1.3".  Over double what the furnace was rated for!

After getting no where with the builder, and no where with the installing contractor, I performed a duct renovation.   ON MY BRAND NEW HOME!!

Now, my family enjoys nice cool air in all rooms including downstairs. 
The system delivers 96% of its rated air flow to the home. 
The system blood pressure is  .54".

And the best part.

We keep the thermostat at 78 degrees 24 hours a day all summer long and our utility bills are lower than those of our neighbors with the same model house, who are constantly turning their air conditioner on and off and keeping their temperature at 80 degrees so they can keep their utility bill down.

Case #2

This one's on me!

I Love Tools and while shopping at Bob's Tools in Rocklin (please don't tell my wife), I found these really cool extendable inspection mirrors.  They had Lights on them!  A new Prime Find, so of course I had to buy all three sizes(don't tell my wife that either).

Anyway, while doing a furnace safety inspection at Del Webb in Roseville, I noticed a spot towards the back of the heat exchanger which needed a closer look.  Because of the easy location of the spot and being eager to finally try out my new toys, I opted to use the small lighted inspection mirror rather than my Infrared Inspection Camera. 

Apparently, my tool bag was so packed that the light holder on the end of the mirror must have gotten jammed and come loose, without me knowing it.  As soon as the mirror hit the back of the heat exchanger, the light and battery compartment fell off  and into the heat exchanger.  Oh my Gosh!  What Now? 

After two hours of trying to get the light out, and successfully pushing it further down into the heat exchanger so it was unreachable, I decided to remove the heat exchanger, turn it over and dump it out.  Thankfully that worked. 
And even more importantly for the homeowner, Thank God I decided to remove the heat exchanger!

While I had the primary heat exchanger out of the furnace cabinet, I noticed a small metal ring sitting on top of the secondary heat exchanger(it was a 90% efficient furnace and they have two heat exchangers). I assumed it was dropped in during the installation process 11 years earlier.  Wrong!

Upon further inspection, I found that the metal ring was a piece of the primary clamshell type heat exchanger that I had just removed, and there were two more of these rings getting ready to fall off.

The rings were actually compression points that helped hold the clamshell type heat exchanger together, and, they were not even compression rings.  They were actually a part of one half of the heat exchanger which gets folded over to hold the two halves together.  The expansion and contraction which occurs as the heat exchanger continually warms and cools as the furnace runs, had caused this piece to break off as a ring, and the other two areas were cracked and getting ready to fall off as rings too!

So, the couple that owned the furnace were actually well on their way to having combustion by-products and CARBON MONOXIDE enter their home whenever they used their furnace!

The Good News!

After a review of their equipment warranty, and a quick call to the factory, I found that the heat exchanger still had 9 years left on the warranty so the new heat exchanger was FREE, and they only had to pay for shipping.  More importantly, they are now safe from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning and will live a lot longer.

The Bad News (for me).

Because I was the whole reason that the heat exchanger was taken out, I could not justify charging them to replace the heat exchanger.

Oh well, chalk that one up to live and learn.

I only saved their lives!!!

P.S.  I also had to spend $75.00 on a new larger tool bag (don't tell my wife that either).
P.P.S.  After I properly snapped the light back on to the mirror, it takes a lot of strength to get it off.  It is a well made tool.  Just like with all tools, you just have to take good care of them.

Case #3

Del Webb Roseville, while doing a furnace tune up for the 2008 winter season, the system blood pressure on the return side of the furnace was measuring 3x what it should be.  After a little searching, the original Smart Vent filter was found completely plugged up.  
The reason:
The builder failed to remove the Smartvent Filter.

The location of the filter the homeowner was told about, and the filter which was changed all of the time, and the only filter which was needed in this system, was located under the furnace in the garage. Again, Come on People!

Case #4

Same as Case #4, except the factory filters were still there too!

Case #5

Again in Lincoln Hills...

I was performing a tune up on a system which was maintained by the installing contractor for the previous 8 years, and the home owner just wanted to try a new company.  Upon opening the blower compartment of the furnace while doing the visual inspection portion of the tune-up, sitting on top of the blower housing, for 8 years mind you, and blocking half of the airflow into the blower, was the instruction and service manuals which come inside the unit from the factory.  8 years, Come on people.

Case #6

The week between Christmas 2006 and New Years 2007 I responded to a service call in Lincoln Hills and was surprised because the house was only two years old.  After running the furnace, everything seemed to work fine except the blower motor never turned on.  When I opened the blower section of the furnace, I found the blower motor sitting at the bottom of the cabinet, and pieces of the blower wheel strewn throughout the cabinet and into the heat exchanger.  This unit is only two years old!

After getting all of the parts which were needed shipped from multiple locations across the country overnight and installing them, here's what I found:

System Blood Pressure - 1.6" .  Over 3 times what the furnace was rated for.

Why?

The return air duct on this system was actually sucking closed when the blower turned on (another first for me in over 25 years of HVAC) due to faulty installation of the duct.

Case #7

After a compressor went out on a Rocklin family's air conditioner, JP Gorman, Inc., was hired to replace the system.  After speaking with the clients and finding out that the living areas of their home never seemed to get cool, they decided to do some duct renovation.

We also found out that in July and August of 2006, their utility bill was over $700.00 each month!  Ouch!!

After installing a new properly sized 13 seer air conditioner and performing the duct renovation, they were overjoyed that their house was getting cool in all rooms.  But here's the best part:  THEIR UTILITY BILL IN AUGUST AND JULY OF 2007 DROPPED TO $180.00 EACH MONTH.  WOW!!

Approximately $266.00 can be attributed to the more efficient air conditioner which was installed.  That means that $254 a month can be attributed to the duct renovation.  WOW! ($700-$266=$434.  $434-$180=$254)

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