I don't think I'll be recommending any more furnace certifications. Heresy you say? No, I have good reason not to. I started out meaning to write a blog about what's involved in furnace certifications and who does them, so I contacted 40 local HVAC contractors.
I was shocked at most of the responses I received.
An Easy Call
When I inspect a furnace and I find a serious problem, such as a cracked heat exchanger, it's easy for me to tell my clients what to do: replace the furnace. The photo above shows a cracked heat exchanger on a furnace, looking at it from the back - this GE furnace had a removable back panel that gave me a good look at the back of the heat exchanger, and made finding cracks very easy.
The Grey Area Unfortunately, diagnosing a cracked heat exchanger is almost always a difficult if not impossible task. Home Inspectors are usually only able to see the burner side of the heat exchanger, and this area is often dirty and rusty, making cracks very difficult to find. The photo above shows a crack as seen from the inside of a heat exchanger, and it's one of the most obvious heat exchanger cracks I've ever seen - yet it's still tough to see. Home inspection standards disclaim the inspection of the heat exchanger just for this reason, but I still do my best to look for problems. When I suspect a crack, all I can do is recommend an HVAC contractor come out to confirm or deny the presence of a crack.
What Excellent HVAC Contractors Do Many years ago, I attended a seminar put on by a very reputable HVAC firm, where the speaker talked about what was involved with a furnace 'certification', which was the type of inspection they would do when a Home Inspector suspected a problem. The guy leading the class talked about using mirrors, borescopes, smoke bombs, leak seek tests, and basically dismantling a furnace to get a good look at the heat exchanger to check for cracks. He assured us that if there was a crack to be found, they were happy to go out of their way to find it, and that's what a furnace certification was all about.
What Other HVAC Contractors Do To gather information for this blog, I contacted 40 different HVAC contractors (23 responded). The price for a furnace certification varied between $135 and $219, and almost every contractor said that a furnace certification consists of an Orsat test. That's it. An Orsat test measures CO² and 0² in order to determine the efficiency of an appliance, and that's about it. It won't have anything to do with a crack. After making all of these phone calls and sending all of these emails, I don't think I'll ever recommend another furnace certification. The efficiency of a furnace doesn't have anything to do with a cracked heat exchanger.
Saint Louis Park has it right I guess the City of Saint Louis Park has had it right for a long time; when they do their Point-Of-Sale Evaluations, they automatically require a certification on furnaces over 20 years old, and they also require a smoke bomb or leak seek test, which is specifically designed to test for a cracked heat exchanger. I think I'll be recommending a lot of leak seek tests.
Don't Call CenterPoint The local gas company, Centerpoint Energy, offers safety inspections of furnaces for $89. Can you guess why the price is so low? Because it's not a certification! They won't do certifications on furnaces, much less smoke bomb or leak seek tests. Almost half the time I recommend a furnace certification, someone ends up calling the gas company instead, and to no surprise, the gas company says everything is fine. I called CenterPoint to see how it was so easy for people to confuse a certification with a basic safety check, and I was quite surprised. Here's how the conversation went:
Me: Hi, can I have my furnace inspected?
Centerpoint: Why, did an inspector suspect a problem with it, or are you selling your house?
Me: Yes, the people buying my house want to make sure it's safe.
Centerpoint: I'm sorry, we don't offer that type of service. You'll need to contact a private HVAC contractor.
The gas company was very clear about not offering certifications or anything close to that. So how does the local gas company show up at the majority of houses that I'm recommending certifications on? It's probably a communication problem. I tell the buyer to get a certification, they tell their agent, that agent tells the seller's agent, and the seller's agent tells the seller. The seller eventually hears "Get your furnace checked out".
From now on, I'll be recommending leak seek tests when I suspect a cracked heat exchanger. One of the better companies that I contacted does certifications for $135, and they always do smoke bomb tests or leak seek tests when they suspect a problem.
Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Saint Louis Park Home Inspections
If you hear about a house getting MAC’d, it usually means that some high-quality “Green” improvements have been done to a house near the MSP airport. The purpose is to minimize noise issues with houses, and that’s great, but I think some of the best benefits of the MAC program have to do with energy savings.
The Metropolitan Airport Council (MAC) implemented a Residential Sound Insulation Program in 1992, and since has gone through thousands of homes near the airport making improvements in sound insulation. This partial list of home improvements comes from the MacNoise web site:
Every ‘MAC’ home I’ve inspected has had professional work performed – these aren’t just quick handyman home improvements. They’re high quality improvements that make houses much more comfortable and save money in energy costs. The average cost of the improvements done to homes has averaged a low of $17,300 in 1995, and a high of $45,000 in 2001. In 2003, homeowners were asked asked if they were satisfied with the quality of the improvements, and 100% answered yes.
Window and door improvements are pretty easy to understand – a better insulated window means less noise, as well as less heat loss. Insulation in the attic is also pretty obvious, but the one thing I’d like to point out is that MAC does an excellent job of adding insulation. They seal up attic bypasses, they add ventilation when needed, and they get the vapor barriers right. Seeing all this insulation done properly on an old one-and-a-half story home just gives me the warm-fuzzies J.
Central air often gets added if it isn’t already present, and while this alone doesn’t do much for energy efficiency, it often means that other stuff has to be done in order to get central air – like replacing gravity furnaces! If you’ve read my blog on gravity furnaces, you know how inefficient they are. In order to add central air, old gravity furnaces need to be replaced with forced air furnaces, and this is a HUGE improvement in energy. Adding central air also requires room in the electric panel for a major appliance, and most of the older fused panels don’t have room for this. This means an upgrade of the electric service too.
Chimney Fan
MAC houses end up getting much ‘tighter’, they also take air changes in to account, and additional steps are taken to ensure all of the fuel burning appliances in homes will still operate properly in tighter conditions. Sometimes this means the installation of a direct vent furnace, a powervent water heater, or even a forced draft fan at the top of the chimney, as shown at right. A combustion air duct is always installed. MAC houses also usually get some sort of whole-house fan installed to make sure the air in the house gets changed out several times per hour – sometimes it’s an HRV, other times it’s a fan installed in a central location that constantly exhausts at a very low speed.
If you’re shopping for a home near the MSP airport, don’t be afraid of houses that have been MAC’d – it’s a good program. To learn more about the program, including future improvements, visit http://www.macnoise.com/noise_programs.
Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections – Email - Richfield Home Inspector
Sediment traps might have more slang terms than any other component in a home; Drip, Drip Leg, Drip Tee, Drip Elbow, Sediment Tee, Dirt Tee, Dirt Leg, Dirt Pocket, Drip Pocket.... you get my point. These names all refer to a short length of pipe installed on the gas piping to an appliance that is designed to catch any foreign debris in the gas line, and prevent it from getting in to your fuel burning appliance and gunking things up.
The basic requirements. Sediment trap requirements are fairly consistent across the country, but Minnesota is a little more strict. Minnesota requires the following for a sediment trap:
Minnesota requires sediment traps at all automatically controlled gas utilization equipment, but good luck getting a straight definition of what "automatically controlled" is. I've been trying for the past four years, and I've received different answers from different authorities. Some jurisdictions say that any appliance that automatically controls the flow of gas is automatically controlled, such as a clothes dryer or a range. Other jurisdictions say that only appliances that turn on and off by themselves are automatically controlled, such as a furnace and water heater. That's the definition I prefer to use.
How important are they? That's debatable. While a missing sediment trap is certainly a code violation, I don't feel that this is a serious defect. It's just a good sign that an amateur has been doing work on the house. I've taken apart many old sediment traps just out of curiosity, and can you guess what I've found at the bottom of every trap? Click the photo below to see.
They're becoming a thing of the past. Natural gas is actually a very clean product today, and I've never found a trace of sediment at the bottom of any trap. The national codes for gas piping don't require sediment traps at illuminating appliances, ranges, clothes dryers, or outdoor grills. This leaves furnaces, boilers, and water heaters.
But if you live in Minneapolis... you better have your sediment traps installed. For a Minneapolis Truth-In-Sale of Housing Evaluation, any appliance that is less than three years old (from the date of the evaluation) must have a properly installed sediment trap. If it doesn't, this requires repair with a plumbing permit.
Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Truth in Housing
Everyone knows that you need a closet in a bedroom to call it a bedroom, right? While this is a universally accepted standard, good luck finding any type of authority that will back this up.
There are a few other requirements, but there's nothing about a closet.
Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspector Saint Paul
Whenever I get around to building my dream home and money is no object, I won't be using a furnace for heat. I'll be using a boiler. Gas fired forced air furnaces are the standard for homes in Minnesota, but boilers have definite advantages over furnaces, with comfort and silence being the two biggest.
Boilers provide hydronic radiant heat by heating water that is circulated through copper or PEX tubing. The tubing can be fed through large old radiators, modern baseboard heaters, or hidden in walls, ceilings, or floors. Wall and ceiling heat is rare - I've only inspected two homes with in-wall or in-ceiling heat, and there wasn't much I could look at. It took me a while to figure out how these systems worked! In-floor heat is the best. The most common way of installing in-floor heat is by laying PEX tubing on the floor and pouring concrete over it. If you're not a fan of shoveling snow, you can even run the tubing under your driveway and walkways.
Boilers provide more comfortable heat than furnaces because the heat is even - especially if it's installed in the floor. Floor heat allows everything in the room to be warm, including your toes. Even if a home is heated with baseboard heaters, the heat is more comfortable than forced air. Radiant heat is a much more comfortable heat than forced air.
The other big advantage that boilers have over furnaces is that they're silent. While newer homes with properly designed furnaces can have variable speed blower motors that cut down on noise, boilers are always silent. If I inspect a home with a boiler and I hear gurgling or bubbling in the pipes, I know there's a problem with the system and I tell my clients to have it fixed. It's usually a matter of air in the lines.
A couple other advantages worth noting are cleanliness and zone control. Because boilers don't blow air (and dust, and alergens...) all over the house, you'll have less alergens in the air, you'll never need to hire someone to clean your ducts, and you won't need to worry about your two-year-old putting Cherios in the vents. Boilers are also much easier to conrol by zone - most forced air systems don't have zone controls, and the ones that do typically don't have more that two zones. I've never seen more than three.
If boilers are so great, why aren't they the standard? No one wants to spend the money. Boilers cost much more than furnaces and they don't provide a way of cooling a home. To cool a home with hydronic radiant heat, a completely separate forced air system needs to be installed, which dramatically adds to the installation costs. In older homes without ductwork installed for a furnace, it's an expensive project to add central air.
Reuben Saltzman, Structure Tech Home Inspections - Email - Home Inspections Saint Paul
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Minneapolis Home Inspections, Truth-in-Housing Evaluations, Environmental testing. Minnesota State Certified Building Official Limited #MN2893, ASHI Certified Inspector.
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