Question:
I hope someone here can help me with this. I have a Sears (Goodman) gas furnace from around 1997 which will not ignite. The thermostat will activate the blower, and the hot surface ignition glows, but it never lights a flame. The igniter turns off after a few seconds, then waits about 30 seconds and tries again 2 more times until it shuts down. It seems as though it is not getting gas. Is there an easy fix for this or do I need to call a service technician. It worked just fine until a day or two ago. Not sure if this is relevant, but we have had heavy rains and high winds in the last few days (maybe water or debris came down the chimney?) Thanks in advance for any help, Nick
Response:
It sounds like either (a) you’re not getting proper venting through your chimney, (b) your pressure switch (i.e., the thing that detects whether you’re getting proper venting through your chimney) is broken, or (c) the exhaust fan that’s supposed to force air out your chimney is kaput or not coming on for some other reason (do you hear it come on when the ignitor comes on?). My problem was (b) when I saw the symptoms you described; replacing the switch made the problem go away. To test (a) or (b) you can temporarily clip a bypass wire around the pressure switch and see if the furnace starts working again. If it does, then one of the theories above is probably correct. LEAVE THE BYPASS IN PLACE ONLY FOR LONG ENOUGH FOR THIS TEST, because if your chimney really is blocked and you bypass the pressure switch, very bad things could happen (fire, death, mayhem, etc.). You could also try inspecting the chimney to see if there is any debris that you can remove. A somewhat less likely theory is that your control module is shot. I don’t think that’s the case here, because it sounds to me like it is correctly shutting down the furnace for safety reasons. If you aren’t VERY comfortable with all of this, it would be a good idea to call a professional instead of trying to handle it yourself.
Response:
>… the hot surface ignition glows, but it never >lights a flame.
Then it seems as if something was blocking the gas flow. If it was the other sensors that Jon Kamens mentioned, wouldn’t it not allow the igniter to go on? Or is the igniter free from interlocks and the interlocks effect the gas valve only? Maybe its a jammed gas valve? -v.
Response:
>If it was the other sensors that Jon Kamens mentioned, wouldn’t it not >allow the igniter to go on?
When my pressure switch was caput, the ignitor and exhaust fan would come on for ten or fifteen seconds and then shut off. The cycle would repeat over and over ad infinitum. The control module was preparing to open the gas valve (hence the activation of the exhaust fan and ignitor), deciding that the exhaust fan wasn’t working (because of the defective pressure switch), and aborting the gas valve opening. >Or is the igniter free from interlocks >and the interlocks effect the gas valve only?
There doesn’t really need to be an interlock on the ignitor. The worst that can happen if it goes on when it’s not supposed to is that it’ll wear out sooner than it would have otherwise.
Response:
Well, the service guy came out yesterday afternoon and said that I had a cracked heat exchanger, which was causing the rollout switches to shut it off. So I could stay warm last night by occasionally resetting the rollouts while we wait for the new exchanger to be installed. From what I have read here and elsewhere, Goodman/Janitrol is pretty much junk. If I hadn’t already over extended my budget for Christmas, I may have just had him install a new Trane or something rahter than put $375 into the Goodman. Well, maybe when it breaks down again in another year or two…. Thanks again for all the help. had a lot of probable causes, but I guess it shows how hard it is to troubleshoot when you aren’t there. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > I hope someone here can help me with this. I have a Sears (Goodman) gas > furnace from around 1997 which will not ignite. The thermostat will > activate the blower, and the hot surface ignition glows, but it never > lights a flame. The igniter turns off after a few seconds, then waits > about 30 seconds and tries again 2 more times until it shuts down. It > seems as though it is not getting gas. Is there an easy fix for this or > do I need to call a service technician. It worked just fine until a day > or two ago. Not sure if this is relevant, but we have had heavy rains > and high winds in the last few days (maybe water or debris came down the > chimney?) > Thanks in advance for any help, > Nick
If you like this post and would like to receive updates from this blog, please subscribe our feed.