Jim Katen

The zip code, alone, puts it after 1963.

Anyone know if those coils were connected in series or parallel? I could convert that into a wicked smoker.

About once a week.

The word is "flue" not "flute." Both the outside air control and the damper should be open while a fire is burning. You may close both of them when there's no fire, but you don't have to. If you leave them open, you'll just lose heated air up the flue and get a draft from the combustion air opening.

Exactly. Someone installed a lav spout on a tub.

I think it's the other way around. A shattered breaker renders the mismatched brand a moot point. A shattered breaker is a whole 'nuther level of wrong.

It's relevant because it means that the breaker had to be damaged in order to fit into the panel. Simply installing the wrong brand breaker in a panel is a very minor issue that's unlikely to have any impact on anything in the real world. Physically breaking the case of a breaker is a larger concern.

I think someone was intending to use it as a inlet for a generator on the roof. It's wrong.

All the connections in that meter main are incorrectly made. I doubt it was done by an electrician.

Hasn't been allowed since 1984.

It's an old trick. When I used to work in theater, we'd add a tiny bit of black, blue, or red tint to white paint. The black & blue made it cooler and the red made it warmer. None of them really made it "whiter" but it appeared that way in contrast with other colors. "Ceiling white" paint often has a bit of blue in it. For black paint, which we used a lot of, we'd add a whole extra shot of black tint.

Very interesting, but paint has limited applications and is particularly poorly suited for roofs. It might be more useful to incorporate this technology into ceramic granules that can be bonded to roof shingles or into TPO or PVC membranes.

Yes, it seems that I've taken a turn onto the curmudgeon highway.

Yes, they would. I pop these out and take a picture of the shattered plastic on the back. (I know, I know, gosh whiz, inspectors aren't supposed to do that. I say fuck it.)

I occasionally find very humid attics like this when houses are located in very humid micro locations. On one, I observed morning sunlight vaporizing water on the house's siding, where it rose like a fog and got sucked into the soffit vents. In these locations, the attic is being vented with sodden air from outdoors.

Was the house in a soggy, wooded location?

All the manufacturers that I know of have the same array of parts - they just use different locking styles. DuraVent, Hart & Cooley, Amerivent, Selkirk, etc. They're more alike than they are different. Flexible double-wall B-vents are a good choice, they work fine, but they seem to need more support than rigid sections. Remember that the sections need to slope uphill at a rate of at least 1/4" per foot. There should be no gaps where it connects to the heater - I'm not sure why you think that's the case. You're not supposed to cut or alter any of them. If you need it, every manufacturer makes a telescoping section that can be extended as necessary to fit. Do not attempt to insulate single-wall vent sections.

Since it's located in an unheated attic, you're not supposed to use single-wall vent material at all. If you do, moisture in the exhaust gases will condense inside the vent and cause corrosion, which is precisely what happened in your installation. Also consider that B-vents require 1" clearance to combustible materials, while single-wall vents require 6" clearance, which would be a pain in the butt where it has to pass through the roof. Use B-vent and B-vent fittings everywhere and make sure that all the parts are from the same manufacturer, who will have all the supports that you need.

You should be able to match it at any HVAC warehouse or even an industrial parts warehouse like Graingers. The switch should have markings on it. Do you have a good picture?

That's definitely a self-adhering product. While I'm not very familiar with the proper installation of this product - I usually see the torch-down version - I know enough about it to recognize that it's usually installed wrong. The end laps are supposed to be offset at least 3' and you're never supposed to bond the adhesive to the granules - at those locations, you're supposed to use mastic. The adhesive only goes onto the portion of the product that's meant to receive it.

You really shouldn't clean a flame sensor with anything rougher than an emery cloth or a scotch brite pad. How short are the short cycles?

Do you keep propane bottles in the house? (For camping lanterns, stoves, etc) Does your garage open into your house? (Vehicle exhaust) Gas welding equipment? Bottles of wood finish? Oil lamps? Maybe those stinky room freshener things that you plug into the wall?

I agree that the air shutter should be opened a bit. The roll out at ignition is happening because the air in the vent is cold and it takes a few seconds to establish draft.

Those apostrophes can be expensive. Somehow, this brings Calvin Trillin to mind. The Nation used to pay him a flat rate of $100 per poem, so he wrote the shortest possible poems in order to make the most money per word.

Yes. We called them barrel-style heat exchangers for obvious reasons. It's very primitive, surprisingly efficient (or inefficient, depending on your point of view), and very long lasting. Subsequent designs incorporated narrow shapes and were intentionally deformed in various ways to improve the transfer of heat, but those deformations always ended up being the sites where failures began. In this heat exchanger, the most likely point of failure will be the welded joint where the exhaust cylinder meets the main cylinder. *Never* re-connect that humidifier. Doing so would destroy the furnace. I'm surprised to see the humidifier tube set to drip directly on the heat exchanger - most of these that I've seen have a little tray that sits above the heat exchanger. Perhaps this one once had such a tray. No matter. Don't use the humidifier. Get your "old timer" heating/plumbing guy back to adjust it. With a furnace like this, the adjustments are not about efficiency. And, yes, 180 degrees at the registers is way too hot. Discard the idea of "maximum efficiency" with this beast. It'd be like tuning up my 1949 8N tractor for maximum MPG. With both of these critters, you tune it by sound & feel. The gas flame should, indeed, be blue, but understand that whenever your furnace is running, rust flakes are falling into the flame and burning yellow or orange. The plate on the end of the burner looks fine to me.