Possible Fraud by Furnace Repairman
Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:24 pm
I have a Miller Furnace that is about 8 years old in my Mobile home.
Last year January 16 2008 I had loud sounds coming from my furnace randomly (those sounds were like gas exploding inside the furnace) and finally the furnace stopped working. I called a heating contractor to fix my furnace. He determined that my electronic ignitor had to be replaced. He replaced it and the furnace worked fine.
This year we heard these booming noises once again on a random basis just before New Years eve. After New Years eve (12 midnight) my wife and I went to bed. About 3 hours later I woke and it was 55 degrees F. in our Mobile home. I pressed the reset button on the furnace and it started to run once again.
By the time we got up at 7 am in the morning the furnace was once again not working. I called the same contractor that had replaced the electronic igniter 1 year earlier and I told him my furnace was not working and I suspected that it needed another new ignitor because the symptoms were the same as the year before.
He came to my home and checked the furnace by trying to get it to start. It would not start and he started looking in the furnace to diagnose the problem. After about 10 minutes he came to me and told me that the ignitor was OK But the Ignition Control Module needed to be replaced at a cost of almost $500 plus $130 Service Charge. I questioned him as to how he determined that the ignition control module was the probelem and I asked if he had equipment to test it. (I was not convinced in my mind that the Module was the problem because everything I saw indicated the same problem I had 1 year before.
The Service Man said he visually checked the operation of the module and the ignitor 3 times and the sequence was out of sync, causing the booming noise from within the furnace because of "Late Ignition". He claimed that when this happens the Module locks out and it will no longer light.
The service man then informed me that he had no module with him and he would not be able to get a new one until the following day January 2, 2009. He shut the furnace door and we tried to get the furnace to light at that time. The furnace did indeed light and we once had heat. The service man told me that the module must have reset itself when we closed the door and the reset button was depressed once again. He said that if the furnace did not keep working we could reset it by pushing the reset button on the furnace.
The furnace shut down when the heat got up to the thermostats setting and after that we could not get the furnace to light again. We had to wait until the following day when a different service man came to replace the Ignition Control Module. The new service man (same Company) installed a new Module (United Technologies Electronic Controls - 1018 Series Hot Surface Ignition). When he had the new module installed he announced that he was going to start the furnace as he had finished the job.
As soon as he tried to start the furnace, there was a loud bang inside the furnace that was louder than any other booms I had heard previously. He jumped off the floor and said... "What was that". He soon realized that the furnace had a late ignition and lite some gas that had gathered in the furnace.
I said to him that it sounded as if the module was not the problem because the furnace was the same as before he replaced the old module. He called his boss on a cell phone and he then told me his boss had told him to adjust the ignitor. He went back to the furnace and was working on it and soon he was back and said he found that the ignitor was crooked and had to be placed into alignment near the pilot. I have no idea if he replaced the ignitor or adjusted it, but the furnace has been working fine since that time.
My real question is this, is there anywhere or any way to get the old module tested to see if it was indeed faulty. I really believe it was not. I believe that I was told that the Module had to be replaced at a cost of $500 because that is a better profit than simply replacing the ignitor for $105.00.
I would appreciate if you can tell me your thoughts. Thank You for allowing me to use your forum. I found it while researching information on the module. I noticed a little red light on the module and I read that that light is supposed to blink an error code when it is not working. That light was never lit at any time when the furnace was not working nor was it lit when I was trying to get the furnace lit again.
Regards
Slyfox
Last year January 16 2008 I had loud sounds coming from my furnace randomly (those sounds were like gas exploding inside the furnace) and finally the furnace stopped working. I called a heating contractor to fix my furnace. He determined that my electronic ignitor had to be replaced. He replaced it and the furnace worked fine.
This year we heard these booming noises once again on a random basis just before New Years eve. After New Years eve (12 midnight) my wife and I went to bed. About 3 hours later I woke and it was 55 degrees F. in our Mobile home. I pressed the reset button on the furnace and it started to run once again.
By the time we got up at 7 am in the morning the furnace was once again not working. I called the same contractor that had replaced the electronic igniter 1 year earlier and I told him my furnace was not working and I suspected that it needed another new ignitor because the symptoms were the same as the year before.
He came to my home and checked the furnace by trying to get it to start. It would not start and he started looking in the furnace to diagnose the problem. After about 10 minutes he came to me and told me that the ignitor was OK But the Ignition Control Module needed to be replaced at a cost of almost $500 plus $130 Service Charge. I questioned him as to how he determined that the ignition control module was the probelem and I asked if he had equipment to test it. (I was not convinced in my mind that the Module was the problem because everything I saw indicated the same problem I had 1 year before.
The Service Man said he visually checked the operation of the module and the ignitor 3 times and the sequence was out of sync, causing the booming noise from within the furnace because of "Late Ignition". He claimed that when this happens the Module locks out and it will no longer light.
The service man then informed me that he had no module with him and he would not be able to get a new one until the following day January 2, 2009. He shut the furnace door and we tried to get the furnace to light at that time. The furnace did indeed light and we once had heat. The service man told me that the module must have reset itself when we closed the door and the reset button was depressed once again. He said that if the furnace did not keep working we could reset it by pushing the reset button on the furnace.
The furnace shut down when the heat got up to the thermostats setting and after that we could not get the furnace to light again. We had to wait until the following day when a different service man came to replace the Ignition Control Module. The new service man (same Company) installed a new Module (United Technologies Electronic Controls - 1018 Series Hot Surface Ignition). When he had the new module installed he announced that he was going to start the furnace as he had finished the job.
As soon as he tried to start the furnace, there was a loud bang inside the furnace that was louder than any other booms I had heard previously. He jumped off the floor and said... "What was that". He soon realized that the furnace had a late ignition and lite some gas that had gathered in the furnace.
I said to him that it sounded as if the module was not the problem because the furnace was the same as before he replaced the old module. He called his boss on a cell phone and he then told me his boss had told him to adjust the ignitor. He went back to the furnace and was working on it and soon he was back and said he found that the ignitor was crooked and had to be placed into alignment near the pilot. I have no idea if he replaced the ignitor or adjusted it, but the furnace has been working fine since that time.
My real question is this, is there anywhere or any way to get the old module tested to see if it was indeed faulty. I really believe it was not. I believe that I was told that the Module had to be replaced at a cost of $500 because that is a better profit than simply replacing the ignitor for $105.00.
I would appreciate if you can tell me your thoughts. Thank You for allowing me to use your forum. I found it while researching information on the module. I noticed a little red light on the module and I read that that light is supposed to blink an error code when it is not working. That light was never lit at any time when the furnace was not working nor was it lit when I was trying to get the furnace lit again.
Regards
Slyfox