furnace fires?

Question

I read alot about houses burning down because of there furnaces. how does this happen?

Answer 1

This happens because people forget to have the boilers and furnaces cleaned by licensed heat tech. The other problem is when they have the new systems installed the customers don't check the certifications of the installers. Most plumbers have not been to heating school remember this. You want techs to have a NORA silver or higher certifications.

Answer 2

One reason that houses burn down due to furnace problems is that the gas safety valve (which is made by Honeywell as example) they malfunction, do not dignose a pilot which is supposed to be lit, yet the gas comes on. Then some spark in the house sets that gas off and BOOM the house is gone.

There is a frequency rate for gas valve failures. Brand new furnaces with brand new gas valves have a failure rate as ive described above of one failure in 122,000 gas valves produced. So you can see that it does happen indeed. and is well known about. Yet it is the best that can be produced.

So the older the furnace, the higher the failure rate of that gas valve.

Sure, someone can improperly install a leaky gas pipe and cause a fire too, but that is highly uncommon. I am not against yearly maintenance of furnaces. But yearly maintenance involves little more than a good vacuum job around the burners and a change of filter. It is NOT true that inexperienced homeowners doing yearly maintenance on furnaces cause house fires. But what is true is people have very old furnaces with poor gas valve safety devices that are outdated and old furnaces where that gas valve malfunctions.

Lets not go for those nonsense scare tactics on furnaces. They remain very safe regardless of who does a normal annual maintenance on them. If you have an old furnace with outdated safety gas valve and gas safety devices get rid of it.

Answer 3

Poor maintenance.