Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - carrier furnace

Awoke to the house cold and found no heat from furnace (lp). Contractor deduced it was a bad heat inducer motor that had fouled the heat exchanger. Home warranty company denied claim based on "lack of maintenance". Had a second opinion, this guy found that the burners had failed and caused the heat exchanger problem and that there was nothing wrong w/the inducer. I did notice a smell of lp gas (faint) outside the discharge pipe one to two days before it failed. second guy says it failed due to normal wear and tear but the warranty company is still denying the claim. Anyone ever run into anything like this. Thanks.

I worked on an old furnace once that was not maintained and the flames went to yellow and sooted everything up, including the burner slots and exhanger and bends in the metal chimney flue. Had to rod it out with a long furnace cleaning wire brush the way you rod out an old boiler. And the sooty carbony junk, and rust was like that also. I would have thought, if I didn't know better, that coal was still being burned, rather than clean natural gas.

I would probably call the h/w co back. Seems from what we read this is a ploy frquently used. You didn't have a chance to maintain in the short time you have lived there. Right?

i have contacted them numerous times and i am still working my way up the chain. They are still denying the claim. To answer your question i have lived here two years, regularly changed the fiilters. The system was not sooted up the way ecman described. The pvc pipe leading outside was relalitvely clean. It seems the burners corroded, it gets fresh air from the outside, and caused them to fail. Quickly I might add, there were no signs up until a couple days prior. I have read on numerous sites that the home warr company frequently denies claims based on lack of maintenance. The info they provided for denial was not consistent with what the first company told me. I asked the first tech if he said some of the things they were basing their decision on and he denied doing so. I'm at a loss

It seems the burners corroded, it gets fresh air from the outside, and caused them to fail.

Odd you should be mentioning this. I was just having a conversation with someone else on the board about this, and in my instance (not the same furnace referenced in this thread), the burners I am dealing with also take fresh outside air into a furnace room. It's quite cold in that room also, because of that - especially during our nearly 20 below zero spell.