dperry

Jim, thanks so much for the detailed reply. A repairman on another forum said he thought the flakes seemed like what he called "silver paint" from the draft hood, which got me worried, but the only thing that would fit that description that would make any sense in this context would be galvanizing compound, and my research hasn't given me any indication that it would contain lead. The rust on one side indicates iron, but the dull silver on the other side made me feel it was something other than soot. The fine dust accumulated in that area does have a dark color, though. Thanks to both of you for the warnings about the age of the furnace---this is a rental property and the landlord will definitely be notified about the unit and asked to have it inspected before I start using it again this fall (the blower also started squeaking badly so it may be time to demand that the whole furnace be replaced). I've stopped running it though, so my main concern was whether I was going to have to do a very thorough cleaning of my entire living room in order to remove leaded dust that had blown around. I'm not as concerned about that now, though, so thanks for that. BTW, cheers from a fellow Oregonian! [:-thumbu]

Hi everyone, I'm not an inspector but have noticed an issue with my gas heater so I hope you won't mind me posting here about it. I have an old Holly (like Williams) gas forced air wall furnace and today I noticed a small pile of flakes in the vent at the top of the unit, below the blower. I assume this is probably the flue vent. The flakes are rusty on one side and sort of dull metallic silver-grey on the other and they instantly turn to dust when touched. There's also a lot of dust around them. Their proximity to the intake blower is what concerns me since they are so light and dusty and because of the age of this thing and the likelihood of lead paint. God forbid if some lead dust got sucked in and blown all over my living room. However, I'm thinking this may be cold galvanizing compound/paint, which is used to treat steel in corrosive conditions. In that case, it would be mostly zinc. I don't know about lead content, though. Unfortunately, it looks like these Williams-type wall furnaces have no filter. I'd like to know what most likely origin of the flakes is and if they are anything to be concerned about. I can only guess at the age of the furnace but it looks '60's. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give. Dave