Great way to start out a saturday

nadams

Came downstairs this morning to find the house at 55*... I could hear that the burners were lit on the furnace, but no forced air... Shut the thermostat off, and went down to check the old behemoth in the basement. Got down and the motor was spinning its little heart out, in vain.

Nothing as simple as a broken or slipped belt, unfortunately. The set screw on the pulley had backed itself out, and the pulley then became free of its bond with the motor shaft. Of course, the set screw was still trying to hold on for dear life, so there's a nice corkscrew of scoring all the way out the shaft. Which means... I can't get the pulley back on.

Charging the Dremel up now to try to buff the scoring out without digging into the shaft too much.

I just installed this motor last year when the original took a dump. No pulley was included with the new motor, so I had to re-use the old one. I'm fairly certain that I put Loktite on the set screw, but I could be wrong.

nadams

Too cold for pics... It's back up and running. A quick Dremeling of the shaft to remove the ridges, a little on the inside of the pulley to smooth things out, and she slid right back on.

Back up and running, and trying to catch up to a cold house!

One of these days, it's just going to crap out, and then I'll be scrambling for a new one. It'd be nice to get it replaced before that happens. Inspection date is 1974, so I guess I can't complain that a 37 year old furnace (Rheem, btw) is still keeping the house warm (most of the time). I had it inspected two years ago, and the technician said it still looks fine... no cracks in the heat exchanger... burners aren't rusted out. So, I keep running it.

greybeard

After you warm up, you may want to shut down the furnace and apply some Loctite to the set screw to prevent it from backing out again. Forgive me if you already thought of this or have done it.

...from someone who spent many, many years as a mechanic working around vibrating equipment that LOVED to shed screws and other parts.

nadams

greybeard wrote: »

After you warm up, you may want to shut down the furnace and apply some Loctite to the set screw to prevent it from backing out again. Forgive me if you already thought of this or have done it.

...from someone who spent many, many years as a mechanic working around vibrating equipment that LOVED to shed screws and other parts.

Oh, I will... searched the toolbox and didn't find any. I've got to run out shortly, and I'll pick some up on the way home.

amulford

Hey, It could have been ALOT worse, man. Thankfully you have a clue...

Ern Dog

Glad you got it up and running so fast.

My house was 57 degrees when I woke up this morning and so I put a couple logs into the wood stove- that's my main heat source. I started the season with 3.5 cords of madrone firewood.

cnh

How old is that unit, Noah?

EDog. Oregon, not really a cold weather state, no? Pretty mild patterns compared to us Northern New England boys!.

cnh

treitz3

While I don't know where the set screw is located or the ease of getting in to doing this.....

Could you not disassemble the unit and install [instead of a set screw] a screw that goes all of the way through the housing? Or, from the opposite side, could you add a stop?

mrbigbluelight

JBWeld.

tonyb

At least it was an easy fix, my furnace is going on 34 years, knock on wood,with no major repairs. Of coarse now that I just said that...

engtaz

Congrats on the quick fix.

nadams

Unit is 37 years old.

I suppose I could permanently attach the pulley to the shaft. I'd just have to mark where the pulley is lined up with the blower pulley and go from there. I think I'll just loktite the set screw and be done with it, though.

tonyb- That's what I thought last year... then the motor died. Dead spots in the motor... it'd run if you went down and gave it a kick-start, but if it stopped in a dead spot, it couldn't start itself back up. Replacement cost me $100 on a very cold Saturday.

Polkie2009

Rheem makes a hell of a unit that still runs and is 37 years old. I've heard others say the same thing about other Rheem products like A/C condensing units,water heaters etc... Just wonder if Rheem's quality and integrity is still as good in this era?

nadams

Polkie2009 wrote: »

Rheem makes a hell of a unit that still runs and is 37 years old. I've heard others say the same thing about other Rheem products like A/C condensing units,water heaters etc... Just wonder if Rheem's quality and integrity is still as good in this era?

There's a lot of things that have changed in the last 37 years. This furnace is quite simple... There's only two sensors in the whole thing - one to detect the pilot is lit, and one to detect heat exchanger temperature. Only two relays, too, if I recall. One for the burners and one for the blower motor. Basically the bare minimum you need to make a furnace work, and simplicity usually extends longevity.

cnh

Ours is 33 years old and can probably heat a house twice our size...Overkill in furnace power. But it's also, Unbelievably INEFFICIENT. Try 1500 gallons of heating oil a year?? That includes hot water heating. But here's the rub, the COIL that heats the hot water is slowly disintegrating and replacements are not to be had. So we get hot water in 3-5 minute increments in the winter and it regenerates in about 2-3 minutes for another 5 minutes or so. A pain if you linger in the shower.

So hot water heater (a TON of electricity spent REGARDLESS of how energy efficient it says it is--your electric bill will rise at least 40 dollars a month? That's EFFICIENT??). Heating hot water is NOT EFFICIENT unless you have a solar panel on your roof?? Or a NEW more efficient furnace at 4.5-5,ooo dollars???

Oh well. Got to GET THOSE OIL PRICES AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE right? And Natural gas lines don't run up to my part of the N.E.? Bummer??

Glad your fix was neat and cheap.

cnh

jimmydep

Glad you got it going without much effort.

New furnaces are so much more efficient than that 33 yr old relic. A nice 90% + efficiency furnace will save you some coin and you don't need a chimney either.