up furnace creek - the illustrated edition

[calimac]

First, for convenience of reference, I'll repeat the original post.

We keep our thermostat turned pretty low, mostly to save money. I'm a warmblooded creature and don't much mind the cold, and B. keeps bundled up. Anyway, with her current overloaded work schedule, if she's not at work she's in bed asleep, under many layers of covers.

Consequently it was not until yesterday that we discovered that, sometime in the last several weeks since we last turned it up for visitors, our furnace has gone out. It's never done that before.

So, light it up again. This is, unfortunately, not that easy. I lit the furnace in our previous home every year - we turned that one off for summer - but this one I've never touched for that, and it is not constructed like any furnace I understand. (It's a "Rheem Heating Center Gas Fired Forced Air Furnace" with "Robertshaw 24 volt (7000 BER) Gas Valves.")

There's a brass plate, not signed by Sir Francis Drake but with instructions for lighting the furnace, but even less than Drake's plate, I cannot make any sense out of it at all. Start with the first instruction, which says to be sure the "main gas valve" and "pilot cock" are off. That's a problem because I can only find one of these, and I'm not sure which one it is, and if the position I found it in is "on" (I presume: there's no obvious little arrow pointing to the valve), then it doesn't turn off, but only as far as "pilot." So I'm lost already.

Later on the instructions refer to the "gas cock dial." I don't know if that's the same as one of the previous two, and if so which one, or if it's a third control device that I also can't find.

Nor do I know where the actual pilot to light is. I told you, this is a very non-standard-looking furnace.

Naturally I tried googling, but with no result. I found the manufacturer website, but I can't phone them on a holiday weekend, and the only thing the website does is sell products. No web advice page I could find deals with this particular model; they just have general furnace-lighting instructions, and they say, for any help beyond that, don't risk blowing yourself up, get a repairman.

So I phoned a well-regarded local heating service, and they said, sure, they'd come out and do it, but they charge $170/hour. Now I'm trying to figure out who else would do it - I called a reliable handyman service, but they haven't called me back, maybe again because of the weekend.

Now, here are the pictures.







Lastly, here are the lighting instructions. (I tried photographing them, but it did not come out readable.)

Lighting Instructions
Robertshaw 24 Volt (7000 BER) Gas Valves

To start furnace

1. Caution - be sure that manual main gas valve and pilot cock have been "off" at least five minutes.
2. Set room thermostat to lowest setting.
3. Turn Gas Cock Dial to the "PILOT" position.
4. Depress and hold gas cock dial while lighting pilot burner. Allow pilot to burn approximately one-half minute before releasing Gas Cock Dial. If pilot does not remain lighted, repeat operation allowing longer period before releasing Gas Cock Dial. (Adjust pilot if necessary.)
5. Turn Gas Cock Dial to "On" Position.
6. Replace all access doors.
7. Set thermostat to a point above room temperature to light main burners. After main burners are lighted, set thermostat to desired temperatures.
8. To shut down furnace: Depress and turn Gas Cock Dial to "OFF" position.

I should make clear that I have no trouble understanding these instructions at all. They make perfect sense. I just cannot relate them to the equipment that I see before me. If the Gas Cock Dial is the white plastic dial just in front of the instructions in the third picture above, which has labels of OFF, PILOT, and ON on it, then I cannot turn it to OFF even by depressing it. And where are the main gas valve and pilot cock mentioned in step 1? Is one of them the same thing as the Gas Cock Dial, and, even if so, what's the other one? Also, where is the pilot burner? I am at a loss.

Comments

Try to help

[(Anonymous)]

Your main gas valve appears to be at the very left edge of the first photograph (outside of the furnace enclosure). When closed, it will shut off the flow of all gas to the furnace. Important if your pilot light burned out, as gas would continue to flow through the pilot burner when not lit, and could accumulate.

I also note that there is no instruction to re-open the main gas valve. You won't get much heat if you do not do that. You should do that in step one, after making sure it was closed for the five minutes.

I don't see any indication of a pilot cock or where your pilot burner is. It will be underneath the air heating section.

If you cannot turn your gas cock valve to "off" then it is probably time to have this beast replaced. :)

Not much help, but hopefully a bit more info for you.

Jeremy Edmonds

Re: Try to help

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I turned off the valve you referred to, and, once I'd done so, felt free to play around with the gas cock valve further, and discovered that while it will not turn to "off" if not depressed, and it will not turn to "off" if depressed, it will turn to "off" if half-depressed. Jesus.

At least that gets rid of the slight gas smell that had been making me nervous every time I poked around in there.

(Speaking of gas smells, you know that natural gas in its natural state has no smell? The smell comes from aromatic compounds added during processing. In the US, that's done because the government required it, starting in the 1930s I think, after too many fatal explosions caused by gas leaks nobody could smell. The gas companies would certainly never have done on it on their own. (They didn't like the idea of their product having a stink; it might depress sales.) I mention this because of the presence hereabouts of the occasional libertarian, who wants to lift from us the burden of government regulation, and return us to the glorious days when we all had the freedom to be blown up by gas leaks we couldn't smell. I will denounce such idiocy until I am blown up or otherwise expire.)

Re: Try to help

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

[the] pilot burner ... will be underneath the air heating section.

And where is the "air heating section"?

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

Now that you've found the two valves (cocks), follow the small tube in front of the Gas Cock Dial down and that will lead you to the place where the pilot light flame should be. That's a sensor that cuts off the pilot if it's not hot. The action of depressing the gas cock valve (step 4) bypasses that safety action and allows you to light the pilot. The larger tube to the left is, I think, the feed to the pilot.
So, after you've found where the pilot flame should be (and there may be a cover that must be removed to access that location,like there is on my water heater), turn on the main gas valve, turn the Gas Cock Dial to "Pilot", put a lit match (long wooden is best) next to where you think the pilot should be, and the depress the Gas Cock Dial. You should now hear gas escaping and the pilot should light.

"adjust pilot if necessary" is probably done with a screwdriver slot on that valve. If that is necessary, you probably should get a professional.

Note that if the pilot is not lit, then no gas should have been escaping, in spite of what anymouse said above.

It can be helpful for one person to manipulate the Gas Cock Dial and another person to manage the match. A flashlight or other method of illuminating the scene well is often useful, especially since this is the first time you've done this.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes! Thank you, Lord of Heat. It worked.

The small tube leads down into the rectangular box below the device on which the gas cock dial sits. (And that box does have a cover; I removed it for the photo session.) There it terminates in a bracket to which is also attached the end of the larger tube you referred to, and the end of that tube has ... a hole. Aha, the pilot burner at last, quoth I. So I turned and depressed as instructed, applied the business end of a lit match, and presto: blue light.

The rest of the story also went as planned.

Yours,

Warm

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

Oh, it looks as if the pilot light is below and slightly to the left of the valve, behind the feed and thermocouple tubes in the center photograph.

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

The reason that you couldn't turn the gas cock dial off without depressing it partway is so you won't turn it off by accident. Some people turn those valves to pilot when they're away from home. I do that to the water heater if the house is going to be unoccupied for a period of time.
My furnace is pilotless- there's a spark generator that lights it off as appropriate. My gas cooktop is also pilotless.