Furnace Problems

The contractor came out and installed a new run in heavier gauge copper than was the aluminum.  The house was originally built in 1967 with baseboard heat.  It appears to have been disconnected and the boards left in place.  The furnace and A/C was added in 1973.  Regardless, the furnace is working quite well, though I had to have it done on my own.

Be sure they use COPPER wire. Alu wire in a home has caused numerous fires, especially since folks don't use  "No-OX" on it. the Alu wire expands more with heat and the connection thermally loosens up.
 I turned down a killer deal on a double wide mobile home because it had aluminum wiring in it. Mass mobile home fires from ones (In the early 70's?? ) caused some insurance companies to refuse insurance.

Well, the repair lasted about 3 days.  I called the same contractor out to look at it and he said he had put the tightest connection that he was capable of on the furnace wiring.  He says the aluminum cabling from the breaker box to the furnace is unable to handle the current required by the furnace.  He is going to install a new run to the furnace.  I hope this ends the trouble.  This furnace smelled almost like an electric fire.

I was finally able to get them to commit to a date to come back here and finish the job.  Yesterday they said it would be Monday before the could come back.  I had to call on my dime since AHS wouldn't cover the repair because they said it had been installed without the board. AHS did the installation without the board.  (it gets better)  When the contractor quoted me Monday, I called another conractor.  This one could come in 2 hours.  I told them to come on.  After their tech got there, he marveled at what a crap job the AHS contractor did.  I showed him the work order the contractor had made out on the system specifying the board needed.  The contractor assured me there was never to be a dual fuel board used in my unit.  He then showed me the "work" they had done and why it had failed twice. The high voltage wires for the heating elements were connected to the elements by wire nuts.  The AHS Freuds had the wrong size nuts and had cut several of the strands of the HV cables so they would fit.  The idiots had done this twice to "fix" my furnace then had the gall to say it needed a $250 board to keep working.  The contractor I called performed the proper repair for $85 and said it should be good for 10 years.

American Home Shield.

Sorry to hear about your problem. Keep after them until they fix it the right way, if they don't, report them to the consumer affairs division of your states Attorney General's office. What is the name of the home warranty company?

The furnace that the home warranty company installed last year has begun running for about a week, then it begins giving off a smell like something is getting too hot to remain functional.  Then, at a special momentI could hear a couple of muffled pops and the furnace would quit.  I called the home warranty company and they sent someone to repair it.  it lasted a week after that repair.They fixed it again and told me it's going to keep doing this.  I asked them why and they said it wasn't installed with a "dual fuel board".  I asked them what it was supposed to do on a electric furnace.  They said it needed it or it was going to do it again.  They left and the furnace lasted til early this morning.  Now I'm waiting in the cold for the warranty company to make it right.