Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - New Furnace Problems

In Sept. of 2004 I purchased a new Peerless WBV03 3 section w/coil furnace. It has a Beckett AFG oil burner. A few months later we got tired of the sound the furnace made upon starting. It sounded like we had a jet in our cellar. The company we bought the heater from sent a tech. He altered the air bands on the blower. After that, we didn't have hot water enough to fill our tub. It would take almost an hour and a half to get a tub full of hot water. He came back again and he increased the heating temp. He came back a third time and put a restrictor in the line. On Christmas Eve of 2003 I went to throw some dirty laundry down stairs and the cellar was filled with smoke. We called the emergency number to the company and when the tech came he found the furnace was completely blocked with soot. The soot had gone up the chimney also. Oily wet soot. He tore apart and cleaned everything. New nozzels were put in, reset the bands on the blower and tested the chimney. Now, in July, we have had the same problem again. This time the soot wasn't wet. I told him I wanted a new furnace or my money back. He says he would like us to work with them. He says that if it happens again then he will call Peerless in to do a checkup. Our warrantee runs out in September which then we would get a presidential plan from this company. In all honesty we don't have the extra money to call other companies to give our furnace the once over. If we have a need to get a lawyer, we would probably end up paying as much as a new furnace. We are not getting any answers and don't know where to look. We are new to the area and know nothing about these furnaces except that there are loads of piping and the furnace. Could anyone give me any advice or help? Many thanks in advance.
Feel free to email me at rhettaedgar@msn.com if need be.

contact the distributor, the manufacturer, the BBB and do not let up. you seem to have a case here

We have contacted the company that sold it to us. I work for that company. We have contacted Peerless but have not received an answer. My next step was to contact the BBB. Thanks for your help and no I am not about to quit on this.

wait, you work for the distributor, or install co.? get the tech rep out, get him involved, you will get satisfaction, you are a repeat customer, not just some homeowner he can blow off until the warranty expires. where do you live?

did you put it in yourself?

we have had techs out until the cows come home. The last one out is the manager of the heating dept. He doesn't have a clue what is making the furnace do what it is. They installed our furnace, we did not. I work for the R. H. Foster Energy LLC company in one of their convience stores. I live in Bangor, Maine. I am drafting a letter to the manager of the heating department and also sending a copy to the owner Robert Foster. Think that will get me a raise? Thanks again
Rhetta Edgar

i think by wording it right, letting him know you not only work there, but prefer to use their products as well will help get his attention. do you have invoices from the visits? this will help show there has been repeated unsuccessful attempts to repair it.

basically you have a new unit that is still under warranty that is not being repaired as original contract states it will be. could be a breach of contract on the part of the installation contractor

if you were my customer i would replace it and fight with the manufacturer myself. this is not fair to you.

267 Pearl Street
Bangor, Maine 04401

July 9, 2004

Attn:Thomas Williams
Robert Foster

On July 2, of this year, we made another call to you/your company in reference to the furnace we purchased from your company in September of 2003. We have had many service calls for it and two instances of having to shut it off because of smoke and fumes filling our home. On July 2 of this year Mr. Williams admitted he did not know what was making the furnace do what it was doing and wanted us to work with him on this problem by seeing if it happened again.
Since Mr. Williams visit we are still seeing signs of soot and smelling the familiar smells meaning trouble is coming. The sound the furnace makes upon starting still wakes us during the night and frightens people that visit, our animals and ourselves. We can no longer live with this situation. We do not like having to go to work and wonder if our home will still be standing upon return. We do not like going to bed knowing we must be up early, lying there knowing the furnace will be waking us up on and off during the night. We lose sleep and are not as productive at our jobs as we could be. It causes stress even while we are at home. These are the reasons why we can not continue to live with the problems your furnace is causing us.
I have told Jim and Mr. Williams at R H Foster Energy that we would like a replacement furnace. The first time we had the problem in Dec. of 2003, Karen was the one to take my call and she couldn’t understand why I was in the state I was in. It wasn’t bad enough not having heat in December but the soot and smell that was throughout my home meant I had to spend my weekend off completely cleaning my home and making sure our animals were not sick from being locked up inside with the soot and fumes. With this last visit on July 2nd, we went down cellar and completely cleaned it. A week later my cats are bringing soot up on their paws and legs. My walls are showing sooty residue. This has become a problem that we are not going to deal with anymore.
We have contacted the Better Business Bureau of Portland, Maine to see if there was some way to settle this matter which they say that our first step is to contact you/your company to see what you will do. We have also contacted Peerless Furnaces and await their reply. We have also talked to other HVAC techs and also to Beckett Burners.
We believe that we have given R. H Foster Energy ample opportunity to resolve these problems. In our opinon it is too technical for the technicians of your company to resolve. The technicians that have come to our home, we believe, have tried the best they can to solve the problem. We are writing to you in hopes that you can solve this without us having to take this matter further. .

Most Sincerely,




Loretta L. Edgar and Melvin R. Edgar

Hi,
Just wanted you all to know that I received a call from R H Foster's "big guy" this afternoon. He and Mr. Williams will be at my home, Wednesday at 12:30 to look over the situation again. I told the big guy that no matter what I want a replacement furnace. He did tell me that they had been in contact with Peerless. I reminded him that I may have gotten a dud furnace. He agreed that it might be just that. If they still want me to keep going with this furnace, it is a possibility I may agree to IF I get another free years warrantee. I wonder if that is fair or would they think I was terrible.
Thanks again for all your help and I will be sure to get back to everyone who has helped me here.
Rhetta

I have read the thread and sympathize with your situation. I am in the service business and the worst thing that I see having happened to you is being subjected to a lack of technical expertise. I hope you don't think the 'big shots' will solve this service problem for you. If a boiler was like a rock you would deserve a new one. However, a boiler is made of many parts and relies on other parts that don't even come with the new boiler. Then on top of that, it needs your chimney and combustion air from your house. I suspect that your problem is either with combustion air or an alteration that was made to the burner in an attempt to quiet it down. My suggestion to repair it is to. Install an outside air intake kit on the burner and let the combustion air come in from outside the house. Then no matter how tight the house is or if you run any vent fans that may drop the pressure inside the house, you will not have a combustion air problem. It also will cost you less to heat the house if you are not causing infiltration all winter when the boiler runs. Have the service company verify that someone has not removed the air guide inside the burner air intake. I have seen it done a few times for some unknown reason and it will cause your problem everytime. Next, be sure that every burner component is exactly as it came from Peerless. That means static plate, retention head and the settings that go along with it. It should only take an hour to verify all those things and install the intake kit. Possibly another hour to get the intake pipe to a good location on the outside of the house. They should record the following measurements on paper: Draft at breech, draft over fire, ambient temp, CO2, smoke, and gross and net stack temperature. In addition, the nozzle size and angle, fuel pump pressure and air shutter and band settings should be recorded. That way if you don't get the same tech on a later call, he will know all that info from the previous tech. If you have the outside air kit installed, it modifies the air band and shutter but still has a numbered scale to record the setting.

I don't think you can blame the cast iron boiler sections for the burners performance and making them hump that boiler out to bring in an identical one will not be really productive. Just be sure that they clean the boiler throughly. It can be tough to get to all the nooks and crannies after a soot problem and you want that boiler 'like new' clean to start fresh. If they agree to give you a complete new burner, that is the heart of the combustion end of the boiler and might be a quicker fix for you. I still would recommend the installation of the outside air intake kit. I'm not sure you will ever make that boiler quiet, but it should not be so loud on ignition as to startle you if you are in the next room.

Let us know the outcome.

Ken

Thank you for your reply. I believe it is the lack of technicle expertise. I think I have had too many cooks in the kitchen so to say. Each has their own mixtures. I don't believe the big shots will conquer all. They never have. I know there are many parts to the furnace but am still brain dead when it comes to talking about one.. My house is easy to heat and is warm when others are screaming about the winter here. Compared to others and their fuel bill they say mine is pretty good. I don't understand the combustion thing for like I said, I am not inclined in this area. I don't understand the "making the pressure drop" thing either. I will though show them this note and see what they will do. I don't know if they know anything about it as scary as that is but I'm game to try anything. I will let you all know the outcome. Then again, it just may end up being a "wait and see" until the next time. Hopefully there will not be a next time. Thanks again.

They looked the furnace over. Tom brought the peerless and beckett books with him. Come to find out, the nozzle that someone had put on, was not the proper nozzle. So when the nozzle was firing the oil, some of the oil was bouncing back at the nozzle. They have installed the proper nozzle. They will also come back on Friday and tear it apart, clean it properly and reinstall everything bit by bit according to manufactures instructions. They are also going to come every two weeks to make sure things are the norm for this furnace. I hope this ends it.

I want to thank everyone for theri replies and help. I will keep you up on any changes that occur.

i am glad you got satisfaction

i am not familiar with those units, so had little technical advice, but hope i helped in some way

You helped more than you know. I felt I was right in standing up to them even though I worked for them and what you wrote just enforced my feelings. So again, thank you.
Rhetta