Customer Reviews

Forced Hot Air Furnaces : Troubleshooting and Repair

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have read the other reviews here, and I guess it all depends on what you are looking in this book.
I own an older gas heating system with a standing pilot and I was having a problem keeping it lit. This book gave me all of the information I needed to fix the problem, and the ability to tune my heating system up so this doesn't happen again.
I read the book from cover to cover after reading what others have written, and I guess there could have been more written on some subjects, but if that were the case, the book would have had to be several hundred pages longer to cover every event that could happen.
I feel the author did an excellent job hitting the high spots on each type of heating system and I don't think the objective was to make a professional repair person out of the readers.
For my money, this is a great book.

I have been in the heating business for over 20 years, and this is the most complete book I have ever read on heating system maintenance and repair.
Every heating professional and homeowner should own this book. It is written so that anyone can understand how their heating system works, how to properly maintain it, and what to do when something goes wrong.
This is a "must have" book, and I have advised to store owner to order enough books so there is one in every repair truck.
This is by far the best heating book on the market today, and the author has written it so anyone can understand how their gas, oil, electric, or heat pump works.

The book is published in 1999. There is agood discussion on older technologies like standing pilot, intermittent pilot, HSI
etc. There is very lirrle information on "Direct Spark Ignition System" which was available in late seventies. I was disappointed in the book because it had very little discussion on DSI systems. I have a house built in 1979. I was hoping to find this type of information from a book written in 1999. It had very little information on control modules, ignitor flame sensors, ignition retries, lockout etc which is vital in trpuble shooting DSI type of hot air furnaces.

I am still looking for a good book on this subject !

I was very pleased with the detail and the depth of the subjects covered. I was looking for a book that would give me options for different types of heating systems available. This book allowed me to review the pros and cons of the different forced air heating systems available on the market. It also allowed me the opportunity to see how easy it was to repair the different systems. This is a great book for anyone who wants to know more about the system that have, or who just wants to review their options. I feel that after reading this book, I would be able to repair my own heating system.

Very disappointed. Very little information on later model heaters.

In the good old days, with ineffecient heaters and standing pilots, heaters tended to be trouble free. In 40 years I never had a heater problem until I started living with draft inducers and control modules. Now I continually have problems with these new heaters in the houses I own and those problem are related to draft inducer motors, sensors, hot surface igniter, electrical igniters, and solid state control boards. Hello!! This book contains essentially no information on most of these items and their application to gas fired forced air furnaces.
I have to wonder why anyone would write a book in 1999 and leave out the subject matter pertaining to the areas that cause the modern heaters to fail.

Sincerely,

vern

This book did not enable me to more skillfully troubleshoot my Lennox G23 furnace. This furnance has been unreliable for failures in the electrical control circuits. Home handymen with a penchant for electrical control circuits who expect to troubleshoot and repair beyond change-a-neering will not get much new from this book assuming they already know the obvious like checking circuit breakers. The book is not sufficiently detailed in describing how furnace control circuits mediate the sequence of events from a new temperature setpoint to its fulfillment. The approximately 150 words devoted to this subject for a furnace of my type are dissociated from references to electronic devices and function modules. For someone who is reasonably technical to begin with, most of the text dwells on common sense matters. When it is time for the author to be more technical he refers the reader to one of the many figures, diagrams and troubleshooting charts taken from manufacturers user manuals. These manuals are usually good references for experienced technicians already working in the field but one would expect the author to offer additional explanations since they tend to be poor learning materials. He doesn't. One would expect the author to describe the various devices, discuss their failure modes and explain how one would determine if they were working or not. There is little of this. A guide to the symbols of the control circuits would be helpful, but no, nothing. In fact, the author fails to discuss key devices like flame rollout, air prove and primary gas limit. This book is not a good repair guide for my expectations primarily for its lack of attention to devices, control circuits and process. For a book that claims to be written for heating system professionals this is serious omission.

I bought this book so that I, as a homeowner, would be able to do some preliminary troubleshooting of the furnace and optimization of the heating system before calling the experts. I liked the introductions to the different types of heating systems, but was really, really disappointed that there was no discussion of how to balance the flow of heat throughout your home using the registers and dampers in the ductwork. There is a sentence in the 2nd or 3rd chapter stating that "a later chapter" will focus on this, but that later chapter is non-existent.

After being told by a so-called professional that my Furnace was basically shot and that it would take upwards of $550 to fix it or I could buy a new one for $700 ... I decided to do some research on my own. I found this book and it was a god send. It detailed exactly what was wrong with my furnace and hot-to fix it. I fixed my furnace for the price of the book and an $80 part.

This book allows a person with minimal experience or knowledge understand the fundamentals of furnaces and provides detailed instructions on repair.

There are many pictures. It covers many kinds of forced air furnaces. The language is easy to understand. There are details.

I read it in a few hours.

I am a homeowner and I wanted to know how my furnace worked, so I pick up a copy of this book. I was amazed at how simple it was to understand.
I don't want to repair my own furnace, but I want to understand how it works so when I do have to call a repairman out, I know what they are talking about.
This is a wonderful book for any homeowner,and I have told all of my friends to get a copy so they can understand how thier system works. I will also say I am not considering purchasing a heat pump after reading this book because I now understand how they work.