Rindle Replacements performed a tune-up on these two furnaces about two weeks ago. (Say that ten times fast.) I visited those same two furnaces today. I visited with the homeowner as well. She told the tale of many tall tales told. I didn’t keep the count, but Rindle did by way of the invoice pictured below. Let’s see if half the lies they tell about the furnaces aren’t true.
“Unit for living space is burnt (sic) up badly in primary tubes.”
The tubes pictured below are not burned at all. The lower section that’s just out of view has slight darkening. That’s normal. This burned up business is a variation of the hot spot lie that was told here.
“High limit is melting.”
Per the homeowner, the repairman is referring to the slight browning of the white insulation that’s around the legs of the high limit (a type of heat sensor) that’s pictured below. Think of that insulation as the modern equivalent of asbestos. Browning is quite normal. Melting is quite impossible.
“PC board is shorting out.”
Shorts happen quickly. If this board was shorting, it would have shorted already. The homeowner told me that the repairman’s evidence for this heretofore unheard-of slow shorting was the blinking red light. In fact both the red and green lights were blinking simultaneously. According to the chart on the furnace, that indicates normal operation.
“Static pressure is very high on both units.”
That may be true. However, the repairman would never know it because he never measured the static pressure. Doing so requires drilling holes in specific places near the furnace. The homeowner never saw or heard a drill. I found no holes. I’d show you pictures of the areas where there should be holes, but there’s nothing to see.
“Units are past their life and in overall poor condition.”
Do these furnaces look poor to you? They don’t to me either. They’re 17 years old. While the national average may be around 20 years, furnaces in the SF Bay Area last 25 to 30 years with relative ease. So far Rindle’s repairman is batting a thousand in a bad way with just as much ease.
“Both units still fine and run.”
Hmm. While that contradicts his previous sentence, it happens to be true. So much for this post’s title. He’s only batting .833. I’m sure his coach will give him a good talking-to.
You’ve seen what Rindle’s repairman did do. Now see what he didn’t do. Each picture shows what it looked like when I arrived and when I left.
He didn’t replace an undersized and very restrictive air filter.
He didn’t clean the flame sensors.
He didn’t tie back the wiring that was touching one of the very hot collector boxes.
And he didn’t clean the vacuum ports. Enlarge the picture by clicking on it and you’ll see white oxide reflecting light inside the port on the left. The same port on the right has no such reflection because it’s clean.
Each and every one of those things should have been taken care of on their so-called tune-up. And each and every one could have resulted in a future failure.
As if that wasn’t enough, he also didn’t check the capacitors. A weak capacitor could result in premature motor failure.
And he didn’t say a word about the messed up drain that’s in plain site. The left drain line slopes up when it should slope down. That could result in water damage.
Oh well. At least he’s raised his average to .917. His coach will be pleased.