- Nov 18, 2012
- 2
I have a Yukon Polar - Eagle II furnace which is dual fuel (wood/coal & oil). It was pretty new (maybe 5 years old) when we bought the home we're in now. We've lived here for 3 years and during that time we've only used the oil side of the furnace and never had any problems with CO. This past weekend I decided to try the wood-burning side. I started the fire Saturday morning and we could smell burning wood inside the house although there was no visible smoke. On Sunday afternoon the carbon monoxide detector started going off. I removed the wood from the furnace and opened all the windows to air our the house until the alarm stopped alarming. A week before I started using the wood side I had our furnace repair/cleaning company out to do fall maintenance and they didn't mention any problems. About a month before that we had the chimney cleaners out to do their annual fall cleaning (we also have a wood stove which has a different chimney) and they said all was good with the chimney. The Monday after the CO alarm went off I called our furnace guys and they came by to look at it. The guy checked the heat exchanger for cracks and said he couldn't see any. His only suggestion is to not use the wood side. He admitted he was no wood burning furnace expert but to me his solution was like going to the doctor because it hurts when you lift your arm and the doctor says well don't lift your arm. My neighbor tells me that the previous owner used the wood burning side regularly and the chimney cleaner supports this because he said he came out regularly to clean the chimney for the previous owner as well. I'm not sure how to proceed. I've tried googling to find a wood-burning furnace expert in my area but no luck yet. It seems virtually everyone has oil or gas. Sorry for this post being so long but I wanted to try and provide as much info as possible. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where the problem may be or how I should proceed?
TIA,
Brad
TIA,
Brad