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Stupid furnace.........


Flyinfool

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Arrrrgggggg........

So last night I get home from work and hear the furnace start up. Well I really could not help but to hear it since it sounded just like a jet engine at takeoff power. So I jumps up off the couch and run for the basement expecting the worst.

 

Open up the covers on the furnace to see what is going on and the draft blower is jumping all over the place. All 3 mounting legs have broken off the housing and it is shaking violently.

So I hit the power switch on the side of the furnace and low and behold it quieted right down. Who da thunk it?

 

I thought well I can live with this noise level but all of the girls in the house might not like the cold. So I grab some tools and dive in. It was really easy to get the blower out, just 2 hose clamps and 7 wires that even had quick connects on them. Easy always scares me. All wires nicely color coded to know where they go back on.

Now with the blower out of the way it was really easy to get to the mounting feet to remove them from the furnace.

Off to the work bench. well first I have to push stuff around to clear a spot to make a new mess in.

First thing was to power up the motor to see if it sounds ok. To steal a quote from the amateur plumbers, "HELL NO". It is vibrating so bad that I can not hold on to it. Well that explains why the mounting feet are broken off and the sheet metal was amplifying the vibrations to make all of the racket.

So time to disassemble.

There are 6 spring clips holding the blower assy together. They came off rather easily, another warning sign. nothing can ever be easy.

Once I get the thing open the problem is obvious, the plastic blower wheel is missing a couple of vanes on one side and has snapped off the center part that attaches it to the motor shaft and the back side is all melted from rubbing on the housing.

There is even a part number on the blower wheel, so I head for the puter to find that part, it is just a piece of plastic, how much can that be?

HA!!! You can not buy that piece of plastic anywhere. You have to get the whole blower assy, every place that lists the blower assy has a note under it that says "NO BLOWER PARTS ARE AVAILABLE" So they must know that this cheap piece of plastic fails but know that they can hit you up for a whole blower.

 

So I do a bunch of searching on line for the best price and cool, the best price is even here in town, so I go to the check out page and then POW, right in the kisser, Even though the place is only 5 miles from my house, they still want me to order it and have it shipped. But they do have a retail outlet.

Get ready.

Are you sitting?

Here it comes...........

There is a $150 counter fee:scared:

 

Well since we are supposed to drop to sub zero tonight I had to do something so I glued the mounting feet back onto the housing and glued all of the pieces of the blower wheel back together as best I can. I even tried to balance the darn thing to get it into the ballpark. put the blower back together on the bench and fire it up. well there is still some vibration but not to bad, so I reinstall it into the furnace. It made it thru the night but I do not expect it to last very long.

 

So I am sitting at my desk stewing about that $150 counter fee and waiting for all of the parts houses in town to open up to see if I can find the part local at a place that actually wants me to come and pick it up. I even thought I found one on Craigslist for $50, new prices are from $300-$700, in New London. New London is only 150 miles away. and my brother lives about 15 miles from there. COOL.

NOT, wrong New London, it is in New London Minnesota not New London Wisconsin. That is to far to drive for the part, it would not save any time or money.

 

 

OK Rant / whine over. Stores are opening up now.:mo money::mo money::mo money:

 

Dang, did I type all of that????:happy-emoticon:

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I think you need to "cool down" a little ...no need to get "heated up" over such a little problem... You're a 1st Genner...you can handle it ! Leave the whining for the jealous 2nd Genners...

 

 

P.S. Good luck ! I have heard that cold sucks !!:confused24:

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I just hate days like these, sounds like when my pressure tank decided to spring a leak in Febuary a few years ago, Went to town and the guy tells me that I need a special tank and that it will be over $700.00 I come home with out the tank make a call to Lacrosse this guy says I have one on the truck I will meet you half way for $20.00 and the price of the tank is $250.00 I told him what the guy in Viroqua told me for their price and he tells me that he supplys the one in Viroqua with the tanks but he will no longer.

Good luck on the part hope you get a fair price.

Orlin

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I had something very similar happen. My furnace made a high squealing nose but not vibrating or shaking. I wanted to dive into it but being it was a gas furnace I was hesitant so I called a furnace guy and watched him uninstall it. Afterwards I thought, criminney-sakes I could have done that. It was obviously the blower motor and several of the fins broke off. He checked to see if just the broken part could be ordered. Nope, he ordered the new part and I went and picked it up and installed it myself. It cost me about $225 of which about $75 was for the house call and his labor.

 

Good luck.

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The furnace is an older high efficiency. Wel it is a 93% efficient which was really high back 25 years ago and had a 10 year warranty. I do realize that the whole thing is old and not long for this world, but a new furnace is not in the budget for this year.

 

I did find a local store that has the draft blower for $225 and in stock. I will be leaving work at noon to go pick it up and get it installed, so that the place is still open just in case I need something else in the process.

 

This has been to easy so far, I'm still scared about that.

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