gas furnace

[beaconlight]

A friend has a new house with a high efficiency gas furnace. there is always water on the cellar floor. It looks to me as if it is improperly installed.
There is a sched 40 plastic pire instead of a chimney. when the furnace is on the flue gasses have a lot of moisture. It looks as if there is a T at with a small line to bring condensate to a small round cylinder. This is where the waste is dripping from. There is a hole in the side of the furnace cane that I feel should be connected to what looks like a small sump pump to push the water out in what looks to be an unconnected clear plastic tubing. There is an unconnected (on the AC side, !2 gauge stranded wire) transformer laying near the about shoe box sized sump pump. I feel the transformer should be hooked to the on switch side of the 120 volt off on switch and the clear plastic connected. At this point I can't tell where the other end of the clear plastic line goes but I imaagine it should go to a drain line. I don't feel it would want to go to the out side for fear of freeze up.
Any and all insite and help will be greatfully received.
Bill

[Rudi]

Bill:

I am no pro.. but I have done my fair share of problem solving on these new fangled furnaces and stuff. One year you build it to existing code, then the next time you need to do something, the code has changed and poof you gotta take it all out..

Zero clearance, high efficiency furnaces which vent via a ABS pipe through the side wiall seem to be more common as we go. My old system had double wall up to the roof, then it went to double wall out the side of the house then they went to the ABS out the side on the propane hot water tank and the propane furnace.

They used high velocity, low voltage muffin fans to push the exhaust out. Venting directly to the outside, can be problematic as condensate will form. My solution was to vent to the inside of the chimney surround. This worked for me, but not for all applications.

Another solution is to continue with the exterior venting solution, but to add to it, as you stated a condensing unit or sump pit at a T-Junction which would allow for condensate to pool in the pit. Then this pit would have to be drained to either the in-house sump pit in the floor, an external drain such as the weeping bed or in the case of how I drain my sump pit.. into the sewer line.

I plumbed my sump pump unit to pump the water from the sump pit up into the sewer line via an 1-1/2" ABS pipe which conformed to code and enters above the clean out. It also has an air trap on it to quash any backflow of vapors. The same could be used passively by running a clear plastic or pvc drain line from the sump pit on the exhaust to the waste line closest to the pit. That way the floor stays dry and there is no overflow as it is a positive gravity fed system.

[cowboy]

Hi Bill

The one my brother put in for my dad is a high efficency with the pvc exhust. I belive the exhust pipe had a T where it came out of the furnance. On the bottom of the T was a drain line and he ran it to a floor drain.

Billy

[junkman1946]

Bill I got one of them fancy gas furnaces. I poked a hole in the cellar floor , made a little drywell. Goodby water. My furnace is 100,000b.t.u. its supposed to generate between 1 and 3 qts. of water per day. The other option was a condensate pump i9nto the septic system. But the furnace guy said the condensate water is loaded with "acid" and other nasty stuff and could harm the balance of the septic system. Thats my 2 cents worth take it for what its worth.

[Lurker Carl]

Since it's new, call the builder to make it right. There is no excuse for such obvious problems when you consider the amount money spent.

[beaconlight]

Thanks guys! I figured it was something like that but I had never seen one of these up close. From what you tell me I had it figured out right. With the popography I would feel water coming through the floor. They are near the bottom of a steep hill that has a gentle hill above it and then another steep hill above that. If the drain is hooked up right they are into the city sewer and the volume in that would eat up all that bad stuff you talk about abd say thank you. Yes the builder is the answer but I had no exact idea of what was right. Now I do so we know what to complain about.
I was dissappointed that with an hour of searching I could not come up with an installation or wiring manual for the furnace. Good ole Farmallcub.com to the rescue.
Thanks again
Bill

[BigBill]

My old house is built on a slab so the furnace sits on the main floor in the hallway.(high water table no basement, if it had a basement we would have an indoor swimming pool) I just installed a new carrier weather maker gas furnace in my house a few years back. I have the usual steel stove pipe chimney flue going up thru the roof with a phoney metal brick top on the outside. The top on the outside has rain/moisture baffles so it can't get back in the house. Since the house is on a slab the furnace has a preblower on the exhaust chimney so it can start the draft ahead of time just before the furnace kicks on.

Now that you know my setup the only problem i ever had with moisture is when the rain baffles rusted out in the top outside. I didn't get much water in the house but i did have some rust form on the top of the furnace were the flue pipe is. I replaced the rain baffles with new ones and it stopped. Everything else is dry as a bone.

[jakeesspoo]

This is what I do for a living. Your problem with the water is because it was improperly installed by a hack. Anyone who knows what there doing could install a new 90+ furnace anywhere you could vent it without having to worry about water. I run into these problems a lot with everyone trying to do this themselves. I saw a lot of mistakes in the replies to this question. When you have a problem like this call a expert. Nothing is more annoying to me when someone calls me and says " I put this furnace in and now its not working right will you come looke at it?" No I probally wont because while I will service almost any brand they probally put a cheap junk furnace in they bought from there local hardware or lumber store and put it in themselves improperly. I see furnaces vented wrong every day. You cant stick any furnace flue in a chimney or doublewall and call it vented. Bottom line if you dont know what your doing stay away. Another reason I dont want to touch a customer installed furnace or boiler is there always installed wrong and when you do see it and let the customer know they dont want to pay you to fix it and probally wont fix it themselves because it is "running". But guess who there gonna call liable because you were the last there when their house burns down or there family doesnt wake up from carbon monoxide poisoning! If people want to try to roof their house fine, have fun. But when it comes to possible deadly gasses and threat of fire we should all buy a quality product and have it professionally installed by a licensed and insured contractor.

[Lance Leitzel]

Jake - May I ask a question about make-up air in a new house? It was installed by a professional. Code around here required a 6" duct to draw fresh air in for combusion. Pretty simple setup, screen on outside and it runs to my basement. Needless to say, it works well, cold air rushes in 24/7. Have you ever seen a system that draws fresh air only when called on instead?

Thanks - Lance

[jakeesspoo]

Normally you only need a 2 or 3" combustion air supply to furnace. If the make up air that you are talking about coming into the house is powervented or tied directly into your return air then skuttle makes a I guess you would call it barometric damper that will only open when the return air or powervent is on. I have installed them before and they typically come in six inch. I cant imagine having just a 6 inch duct running into the basement from outside, Im assuming it has to be tied into something?

[Lance Leitzel]

Hi Jake - That's what I thought. The exhaust PVC pipe isn't 6" by any means. Honestly, it doesn't connect to anything else. Now I do have a gas (propane) hot water heater as well, but I couldn't imagine with both of them running that I'd need a 6" pipe. Thanks for responding, I'll try to find a barometric damper. My only guess is they were considering selling me a fresh air exchanger???

[beaconlight]

Jake I understand your frustration with improper installation.
The one in question is in a new house, licensed NYC plumber and a NYC CofO. I can't begin to tell you how strongly I feel that this owner never should have bought a house. Even stronger not this particular house in the neighborhood it is in. There is also a 6 inch makeup air vent straight to the outside on this job too.