Springfield, VT

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 1, this first post of a series of three posts is to accompany the second series, that I've written for a challenge to write a number of blog post series. The main series title of the three psrt series - A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers. These two series are intended to help Home Buyers, Home Owners. Real Estate Brokers and Real Estate Agents, to understand Oil Fired Furnaces, Please feel free to pull up a chair, and enjoy reading and learning about one of the major parts of a home.

Its very important to keep your furnace's fan motor clean, seen that the fan motor is the heart of a forced air system. These motoes are usually about one horsepower or more, and it turnes a cylindrical high speed fan, usually by using a belt similar to the fan belt in your vehicle.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 1, the fan motor is usual the most neglected appliance in your home. The fan motor of the furnace in most homes goes unchecked for a dozen years. Most are built, not to be serviced. That sure does not mean it does'nt need to be serviced, it just means that theses no service points built in.

Now assuming that the belts are not too tight, the motor tends to last and last, until the bearings to run out of oil. In older motors, the bearings could be oiled through special, and almost impossible to reach fittings. The newer motors tend to be sealed.

When the motor's bearings start to wear, the motor will often produce a hum or sometimes even squeal. And eventually the motor will start to overheat, and then it will burn out. To test the motor, you'll need to run it, without the heat exchanger coming on. You'll usually find a fan only switch either near the motor or at the thermostat. After turning the motor on, listen closely. You should only hear a very minor purr. If you hear any loud noises at all indicates problems. A new motor can very will cost you, between $100.00 or even $200.00, thats uninstalled.

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By the time we complete the Inspection, you will know the Home or Commercial Property better than the owner does!

God Bless America, The land we love

A home inspection from Baker Home Inspection and Consulting, will give you peace of mind, so you and your family can enjoy the things you like to do!

Knowledge is Your Power For The Freedom of a Worry- Free Home!

When buying, renting a Home or Commercial Properties or Relocationing in or to Sullivan County, New Hampshire, Windsor County, Vermont, or nearby Counties. When "Good Enough" Isn't, call Baker Home Inspection and Consulting to schedule, Your Inspection.

Phone: 603-826-4207

Mobile: 603-477-8072

Post 572- 25 Aug. 2009-Posted at: Localism.com/neighbor/bakerhome all links open in a new window

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 1, This is the first part of a three part series about Oil Fired Furnace. A oil furnace in Vermont and New Hampshire, can be a Forced Air Furnace with a ductwork system or a Boiler that heats water to send through a piping system through out the home to heat it. This series mainly talking about a forced air system. I'll be covering other heating systems in other blog posts.

1. Upflow - in the basement with upward flow.
   
2. Upflow - in a closer or utility room with upward flow.
3. Horizontal - in attic with either side flow.
4. Horizontal - in crawl space with either side flow.
5. Downflow - on slab floor or crawl space with downward flow.

Just like the of the plumbing and electrical systems of the home, the furnace is a vital system to any given home. And it can be expensive to fix if it should break down for some reason. This is one of the reasons, you should want to have the home your looking at to buy. To have a thorough Inspection of the home.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 1, in a forced air system, a central furnace uses Oil, Electric, or propane in Vermont and New Hampshire. In other parts of our Gand Country folks have Natural Gas Furnaces. All these furnaces heat the air, which is then forced through the ductwork of the home by a fan until it is blown out into the various rooms of the home. All these systems work very efficiently in that you can raise the temperature in your home when its cold, extremely quickly. They can raise the air temperature 40 degrees in less than an hour.

The main trouble with any forced air system, is that particles of dust are always being blown around, which means that its necessary to constantly change the filter of your furnace. Ones a month is recommended in the winter time. Also another down side to a forced air system, they are not very good at radiant heating. They quickly warm the air of a room but slowly warm the walls, furniture and floors. Thus, in very cold climates, while the air temperature may be a very pleasant 70 degrees, the walls could very will be a much cooler 50 degrees. As a result, as soon as the desired air temperature is reached and your furnace turns off, the walls will begin to cool the air, requiring the furnace to come back on again.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 1, virtually all forced air furnaces operate on a thermostat. Your Home Inspector should turn the thermostat on and off several times, all the way to high, and then back to low. To be sure the furnace is working functioning properly.

Link to Part 2 of the Series

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 2

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By the time we complete the Inspection, you will know the Home or Commercial Property better than the owner does!

God Bless America, The land we love

A home inspection from Baker Home Inspection and Consulting, will give you peace of mind, so you and your family can enjoy the things you like to do!

Knowledge is Your Power For The Freedom of a Worry- Free Home!

When buying, renting a Home or Commercial Properties or Relocationing in or to Sullivan County, New Hampshire, Windsor County, Vermont, or nearby Counties. When "Good Enough" Isn't, call Baker Home Inspection and Consulting to schedule, Your Inspection.

Phone: 603-826-4207

Mobile: 603-477-8072

Post 571- 24 Aug. 2009-Posted at: Localism.com/neighbor/bakerhome all links open in a new window

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 2, this post is post 2 of a 3 post accompanying series, to my main series for my second series of a challenge to write and post, blog post series. The title of the series is, A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers. These two series are intended to help Home Buyers, Home Owners, Real Estate Brokers and their Real Estate Agents, to understand Oil Fired Furnaces. Feel free to pull up a chair, and enjoy reading and learning.

There are many parts to a Oil Fired Furnace of a home. The oil tank holds the live blood for your Oil Fired Furnace.

This is an outdoors oil thank, that is sad. All because the owner did not maintain it!

Its also not a good idea to have your window Air Conditioner be-hand your oil tank! The air conditioner good very will short-out. A few things sure could happen, if that was to happen.

One way to help your oil tank, not to end-up looking and feeling sad. Is to build a storage unit around it.

Its very important that the oil level be kept up in your oil tank. By allowing it to be low for long periods of time, water is going to evaporate out of the oil and start corroding the inside of the oil tank. The corrosion will then fall back into the oil and plug the oil filer in the front of your furnace. Your Home Inspector sould check to see whether there is or has had a lot of oil under the filter, this could vey will suggest that the filter has been changed quite often. A filter that has to be changed often indicates there are problems in the oil tank. And it sure be written up in the Inspection Report.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 2,Oil tanks are typically available in many sizes, starting from a 250 gallon tank on up. The larher the tank size is, the better off you are. Theres a lot less chance of it running out of oil during some of the larger snow storms that we can have in these parts. The other thing about having a larger size tank, you can often buy your oil at a lower unit cost because of the amount of oil you would be purchasing.

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By the time we complete the Inspection, you will know the Home or Commercial Property better than the owner does!

God Bless America, The land we love

A home inspection from Baker Home Inspection and Consulting, will give you peace of mind, so you and your family can enjoy the things you like to do!

Knowledge is Your Power For The Freedom of a Worry- Free Home!

When buying, renting a Home or Commercial Properties or Relocationing in or to Sullivan County, New Hampshire, Windsor County, Vermont, or nearby Counties. When "Good Enough" Isn't, call Baker Home Inspection and Consulting to schedule, Your Inspection.

Phone: 603-826-4207

Mobile: 603-477-8072

Post 570- 23 Aug. 2009-Posted at: Localism.com/neighbor/bakerhome all links open in a new window

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 2, the home your looking at to buy will have one of four ways, that it may be heated. A Oil Burner, Electric Furnace, maybe a Wood Burning Furnace, that could be indoors or outdoors, or a Corn Bunrning Furnace. At this time we'll be taken a look at the Oil Tank and Oil Fired Furnace.

The oil fired furnace came to being used in residential homes after World War II as an advance over the widely used coal furnaces of that time. The oil your furnace will use to heat your home, is stored in a large tank. It will be located outdoors or in the basment of your home.

What do I look for, when Inspecting the Oil Tank of a home:

1. Are the tank's legs unstable or on a shaky foundation.
2. Is there any signs of rust, weeping, wet spots or dents on the tank.
3. is the tank blackened at the low end, around the drain area. If there is, it very will could be an indication there is water in the tank, resultant conrrosion inside the tank.
4. Are there drips or signs of leakage around the fuel line, the filter or any valves areas.
5. Is there any danger of ice and snow falling on the tank.
6. Is the vent area clogged or restricted from ice, snow fall, or nest of insects. By using vent screen, it can help prevent insect nest problems.
7. Does the vent whistie, when the tank is being filled. The way I find this info out, is by asking the fuel delivery guy.
8. Is there any signs of leakage or spills right around the fill pipe or vent pipe.
9. Is the tank's fuel level gauge cracked, stuck or feozen. Is there any sign of oil around it.
10. Is the tank rated for outdoor use, if its mounted outdoors.
11. Just what is the age of the home's oil tank. This usually is not indicated, unless the tank new than 1998.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 2, between the tank and the burner, is an oil filter and a shutoss valve, which is either at the tank itself or at the oil pumo.

A typical oil burner. The oil line comes in to the left of the furnace just above the fool, followed by the cutoff valve and then the oil filter. If there is soot around the furnace, disassembled ducts, flues that are falling apart, or flammable materials stored too close to the furnace, like in the above photo. These things will be written up in the Inspection Report.

An oil burner is quite a complicated piece of machinery. The oil first flows into a oil pump, its normally mounted to the left of of the circulator motor, which is always mounted dead center bottom of the system. The pump pressurizes the oil to about 100 psi and sends it through a tiny hole in a nozzle deep inside the unit it sprays an oil mist into the combustion chamber. Electrodes placed near the nozzle send 10,000 volts arcing through the oil mist and igniting it. Once fired, it is self sustaining. The combustion chamber is not open and needs a suppy of air to sustain the flame. This air comes from a blower mounted and run by the same motor that runs the oil pump.

The draft regulator cut into the exhaust flue should swing open 1 in. or 2 inchs. If it sould stay permanently open or closed. I'll be writing it up in thr Inspection Report.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 2, The combustion chamber is not as easily accessible as in most gas burners, so I use a special piece of equipment to help me to inspect the area. Its called a SeeSnake, its a micro Inspection Camera that lets me easily perform visual inspections in challenging areas such as this of the home.

By using equipment like this, is one of things that sets my Home Inspections apart from other Inspectors in the area.

Link to Part 3 of the Series

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Part 3

Link to Part 3 of the accompaning series

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Part 3

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By the time we complete the Inspection, you will know the Home or Commercial Property better than the owner does!

God Bless America, The land we love

A home inspection from Baker Home Inspection and Consulting, will give you peace of mind, so you and your family can enjoy the things you like to do!

Knowledge is Your Power For The Freedom of a Worry- Free Home!

When buying, renting a Home or Commercial Properties or Relocationing in or to Sullivan County, New Hampshire, Windsor County, Vermont, or nearby Counties. When "Good Enough" Isn't, call Baker Home Inspection and Consulting to schedule, Your Inspection.

Phone: 603-826-4207

Mobile: 603-477-8072

Post 569- 21 Aug. 2009-Posted at: Localism.com/neighbor/bakerhome all links open in a new window

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 3, this post and two others to follow are accompaning posts to my second series of a challenge to write blog post series. The title to the series is A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers. These seriers are to help Home Buyers, Home Owners, and Real Estate Agents, to understand Oil Furnaces. Feel free to pull up a chair, and enjoy reading and learning.

A conversion type oil burner can be adapted to most forced warm-air furnaces. There are areas in the Country, that do not have natural gas available, like here in Vermont and New Hampshire, a oil burnering furnace is the next best heating source. The operating cost is midway between natural gas and electric residential heating.

An oil burner requires a combustion chamber to contain the flame. This chamber is fourteen inches to eighteen inches in diameter and can be made of stainless steel or insulating firebrick. The stainless steel chamber of the furnace, is sized to match the firing rate in gallons per hour. Some firebrick chambers are preformed to size, while some others are built on site to fit the available space in the home.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 3, the information you'll need to purchase an oil burner can be found on the nameplate of the furnace. The nameplate has the BTU input and output, such as, 85,00 BTU. 100,000 BTU input. The BTU input determines the firing rate in gallons per hour. The standard domestic oil burner uses No. 2 fuel oil. which contains 136,000 BTU per gallon heat value. Most single homes of up to 1,800 square feet floor area would have a 150,000 BTU furnace firsed at a rate of 1.10 GPH, Smaller homes might need a firing rate of 0.70 or 0.85 GPH.

If your installing a new oil burner, you'll want to have the combustion chamber inspected and replace it, if needed. You'll want to measure the present chamber for correct size replacement. The furnace manufacturer's local dealer should have all of the necessary parts on hand, or they can order the items for you. In addition, you'll need furnace cement, bolts, 3/8 inch copper tubing, 3/8 inch flare fittings and flare nuts, a short piece of flexible metal conduit, necessary fittings, and wire connectors. A new stack safety relay or other safety control might be included with the new burner. The fan and limit controls can still be used, if they are in good operating condition.

A Home's Oil Furnace The Series Windsor County Vermont Home Buyers Accompany Series Post 3, you'll want to be sure to have it determined that the wiring to the furnace is on its own separate circuit. If the wiring of the furnace is in good condition, it can be reused. But do replace the flue pipe and vacuum, and brush the passages inside the furnace. You'll want to determine the nozzle firing rate and angle of spray, and whether it is a solid or hollow spray. Theres a designation stamped on the nozzle such as, 0.85-80-H, this means a 0.85 gallons per hour oil flow, 80 degree spray angle, and H, hollow or S, solid. The hollow spray is similar to a funnel, with the funnel wall the oil droplets. A solid spray is still the cone shape, but the cone is solid with oil droplets. The design of the replacement burner might be slightly changed, making minor adjustments necessary.

If you are not familiar with a oil burners operations and start up, it sure would be wise to have the burer started and adjusted by a service technician. There are necessary tests that must be made, for which specialized instruments are needed, and its worth the cost of the service call to have the start up done right.

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By the time we complete the Inspection, you will know the Home or Commercial Property better than the owner does!

God Bless America, The land we love

A home inspection from Baker Home Inspection and Consulting, will give you peace of mind, so you and your family can enjoy the things you like to do!

Knowledge is Your Power For The Freedom of a Worry- Free Home!

When buying, renting a Home or Commercial Properties or Relocationing in or to Sullivan County, New Hampshire, Windsor County, Vermont, or nearby Counties. When "Good Enough" Isn't, call Baker Home Inspection and Consulting to schedule, Your Inspection.

Phone: 603-826-4207

Mobile: 603-477-8072

Post 568- 20 Aug. 2009-Posted at: Localism.com/neighbor/bakerhome all links open in a new window