Friday, January 21, 2011

Sick day and Furnace

Well-

I wasn't feeling well yesterday, so I had to take a sick day.
However, since I'm a father and a homeowner, my day of rest and relaxing to get better was filled with furnace mishaps. On Wednesday I had to move some plumbing on the furnace. I have an oil furnace with three circulating pumps. Two of them are going to two different air handlers for the forced hot air (one in the basement, the other in the attic) and the third pump goes to the hot water tank.
So I had to move the return and supply going to the basement air handler, no big deal. I used CPVC and shark bite fittings. Took me about 20 minutes.
After wards I pressurized the system back to 15 psi (or so I thought).
The next morning when I woke- no heat and no hot water.
Turns out that the gauge on the furnace was broke and stuck at 15 psi. The filling valve that  I was using to pressurize the system was stuck closed. So needless to say, I was never pressurizing anything! There was a little bit of fluid in the system, so the no water sensor never went off.
OH and to add to the fun, the supply going to the air handler in the attic froze. Luckily they used the old PEX piping so the pipes didn't break all it took was a space heater to thaw (I know Antone- not de-thaw. I had to get it correct since you are the only one who reads these) then every thing worked fine.
A word to the wise, if your heating system requires antifreeze, you should insulate your attic more. The attic in this house has R-30 everywhere including the attic floor. But not in the attic eves which I've been slowly insulating with the air baffles. I guess I should have done that sooner.

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