Help, furnace short-cycled to death

[georgetownhomeowner]

Hi -- We're homeowners north of Boston who have had problems with our furnace ever since building our house six years ago. On Thursday when we lost heat again, on an 8-degree day, we finally found out why:

The unit that heats our first floor (roughly 1,700 sf) is 105,000BTUs. It should have been about 60,000 apparently. So, it's been short-cycling all this time, condensation was building up, and the inducer motor finally died. With no heat, we felt we had no choice but to replace the unit (with an 80,000BTU) for $3,300.

We called the builder immediately, who blamed the heating contractor. The contractor said they thought we were going to finish the basement, and that they sized the heating unit based on that. We had no plans to finish the basement, and it's still unfinished. We also found out the unit was made in 2001, but our house wasn't built until summer of 2002, and wasn't complete until December. I'm wondering if the contractor had the unit somewhere and just shoe-horned it in, not knowing or not caring that it was inappropriately sized.

We're going to try to recoup the cost of the new system from the original contractor. A failed furnace in a six-year old home, especially for such a clear-cut reason, seems unacceptable. Are we reading the situation right? Is there anything else I should try to find out? I have no idea how the contractor originally calculated the size unit we'd need, or any of the details about the system -- I didn't even know how many BTUs it was until it died. All of this is new to us, so please forgive our ignorance. Any advice or guidance would be helpful.

Thanks,
Georgetown Homeowner

 

[Bob R]

A good rule of thumb is to take the volume of the heated space and multiply it by four. So if you have 8 foot ceilings:

1,700 x 8 x 4 = 54,400 btu's.

I'll let the expert get into the details.

Bob

 

[Sponsor]

 

[NHmaster]

Unless all that finished basement thing was in the contract I think you will have a difficult time recouping anything from the contractor.

 

[Jimbo]

The furnace probably had a 5 year warranty, but check your papers to see if it is more.

You have a legal he said/she said that will require the services of Johnny Cochran.

One thing that you can do as far as the new one is get an upper scale model with 2 stage burner and variable speed. Easier to control to your needs.

I grew up in Newbury ( 50's ) but have been a Calif. boy for 40 years. My dad was Captain of the Volunteer FD way back, and I'm sure he knew some of the Fire Fighters in Georgetown.

 

[georgetownhomeowner]

Thanks for the feedback

Thanks for the comments so far. I am learning a lot about a subject I knew nothing about a few days ago.

It does sound like a he-said-she-said kind of situation, that's what I was afraid we're facing. I was wondering though if it would be normal or usual procedure to deliberately put in a larger-than-needed unit on the presumption that later on, the homeowner might finish the basement. Wouldn't that be reckless? We know we didn't have any plans to do that, and there's certainly nothing in writing. When the heating contractor finished the job, they had to know it was heating a far small area than it should have been. Even the builder agrees they installed the wrong-size unit. Of course he's trying to cover himself too. Everyone's going to blame someone else -- I can see how this is going to drag out. Ugh!

(Jimbo, don't know if you've been back to Newbury but it hasn't changed much since you left, I'd bet. It's beautiful, so rural still. Georgetown on the other hand has had a lot of young families like us coming in, changing things a bit. We almost got a Target, over on the Rowley side of 95, which I would have loved, but all the seniors came out and voted it down. Oh well!)

 

[Jimbo]

(Jimbo, don't know if you've been back to Newbury but it hasn't changed much since you left, I'd bet. It's beautiful, so rural still. Georgetown on the other hand has had a lot of young families like us coming in, changing things a bit. We almost got a Target, over on the Rowley side of 95, which I would have loved, but all the seniors came out and voted it down. Oh well!)

It has been about 4 years now. I am due for a trip back. Gotta get my fix at the ClamBox in Ipswitch and Brown's Lobster joint over in Seabrook. I do follow the local news, and lately they are desperatly trying to stop the ocean from splitting Plum Island in two. Good Luck with that!

 

[johncap523]

Thanks for the comments so far. I am learning a lot about a subject I knew nothing about a few days ago.

It does sound like a he-said-she-said kind of situation, that's what I was afraid we're facing. I was wondering though if it would be normal or usual procedure to deliberately put in a larger-than-needed unit on the presumption that later on, the homeowner might finish the basement. Wouldn't that be reckless? We know we didn't have any plans to do that, and there's certainly nothing in writing. When the heating contractor finished the job, they had to know it was heating a far small area than it should have been. Even the builder agrees they installed the wrong-size unit. Of course he's trying to cover himself too. Everyone's going to blame someone else -- I can see how this is going to drag out. Ugh!

(Jimbo, don't know if you've been back to Newbury but it hasn't changed much since you left, I'd bet. It's beautiful, so rural still. Georgetown on the other hand has had a lot of young families like us coming in, changing things a bit. We almost got a Target, over on the Rowley side of 95, which I would have loved, but all the seniors came out and voted it down. Oh well!)

Virtually ALL heating systems and air conditioners/heat pumps are WAY oversized ESPECIALLY in new construction. When I used to teach hydronics for a local utility years ago, the standard joke we'd tell a new class was to ask them how you'd size this house. And the joke was you'd put your two hands up with your thumbs extended touching each other making a goal post and you'd stand across the street and if the whole house fit inside your hand it was 100,000 BTUs and if the house didn't fit it was 150,000 BTUs, and beleive me, most HVAC guys today use this method! Worse, they use the, "this is what's in stock" method.

Many years ago a friend asked me to install a/c for his parents in an old Philly home that never had a/c. When we showed up with a 2 ton condenser they flipped out because their neighbor had this nice huge 5 ton baby right across the street. I promised them their house would be far more comfortable and cost-effectively cooled with this slightly over-sized unit than their neighbors whose unit would short cycle and fail to dehumify like crazy. Nver heard from them again.

Anyway, you're gonna have little recourse unless the builder makes good on the unit failing (although just a failed inducer hardly qualifies as a failed furnace....have the heat exchanger checked and hope it's perforated).