British Furnaces Ain't Got Nothing on America
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- čas přidán 14. 02. 2023
- Now that I own my first American house, it's time to take you into the boiler room and look at how it differs from my experiences in Britain.
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As many have pointed out: "ooh, Laurence, since you have a gas water heater, you don't need to turn off the electrics before turning up the dial." This has proven correct. Thank you.
The electric ones, you can just turn off the breaker at the meter box, should have its own 30 amp breaker. But yeah, it's gas lol. My gf's mom used to turn off her water heater after every use until I explained they are supposed to stay on and that she wasn't saving any money turning it off but wasting money reheating cold water everytime she had to shower.
Even electric water heaters have a thermostat that can be adjusted without shutting the power off. Curious to know why one would think power needs to be disconnected to adjust a thermostat. Is that a thing in Europe?
Yup
Also the thing that you don't know what it is that is compensated for temperature and measures cubic feet is the gas meter. Don't touch it.
That gas pipe that went to your fireplace and some "professional" capped off with some pipe dope and left hanging. Yeah, that one. I would get some pipe strap put on there so the weight isn't just hanging on the pipe itself. Might want to get a new "professional" since that one left you hanging.🤣
Lawrence, you have a naturally aspirated gas water heater. It's not connected to your house electricity in any way. You can turn that dial with impunity, with zero risk of electric shock.
Electric water heaters have the thermostats near the contacts for the elements, so it is best to shut them off before you adjust the thermostat. But even then, your breaker panel will have a dedicated breaker for your water heater in your breaker panel. It should be a 30Amp breaker, most likely a double pull (takes up two slots). You can just flip that, it will turn your water heater off, but leave everything else in your house working. This only applies if you decide to get a new house with an electric water heater, since yours is gas and not connected to electricity at all.
EDIT: source: I am a professional plumber.
Thank goodness you spoke up! I’ve only ever had gas water heaters and would never have known that electric ones couldn’t have the thermostat adjusted without being disconnected from power-that seems-not optimal. Very prone to user error!
Agreed! HVAC guy!
Don't forget to tell him about maintenance like replacing anode rod periodically.
I'm an electrician and I concur.
Agree! Get those scalding hot baths, Lawrence! No need to shut your electricity off.
Just for your information there are both furnaces and boilers in the US. You have a gas furnace. Boilers typically are used in homes which still use radiators. You have to be aware to replace the disposable furnace filter periodically ( I do mine every 3 months) and replace the humidifier wick each fall. Good luck!
There are certainly boilers in England too infact enough so that they nicknamed furnaces boilers England generally dosent like people upgrading anything in really old buildings because of historical value
A boiler uses hot water for heat
@@tray3120 Edit for clarity.
You are right that generally most use water, however some use oil as the fluid.
In my case the magic days are solstices and equinoxes. Not because I am a druid, but because it's easy to do something every 90 days-ish if you have an astronomical event to which they can be attached. So every solstice and equinox at the stroke of midnight I don my sacred robes and swap the air filter, replace the electric toothbrush head, and dump water into the drains that don't get enough drainage to keep the p trap charged.
Some folks call
it the "hot water heater"
That thing with all the little dials on it is a gas meter, it measures how much gas your house is taking in from the gas company. You might notice that the dials move when the gas heater you have is on vs off, or any gas appliances as well. You can often find those things somewhere outside the house to, back in the days when someone would physically come and read your dial to send you the proper bill.
we still have people come and read our electric, water, and gas meters every month.
@@erickelley1680 Wow! That's unheard of today - in Pennsylvania anyhow.... 😮
PS/edit: We have a remote wireless thingy the utility company placed on their respective meters and they can read it from outside.
@BritIronRebel seeing as I'm in pa it's still around. But I live in a small town.
i remember that as a kid
I live in a mixed housing complex, and the utility company does not read the meters. That has to be done by the property manager, who I assist because some still have the 5 dial meters like was shown on Lawrence's service. Those are very old, and few can read them correctly anymore. Too many bad readings, so I took over years ago with mine and some others. The power company will not upgrade the meters unless they actually break, and the old ones last forever. These come in both gas and electric.
The furnace & boiler are two DIFFERENT machines but serve the same function. Furnaces heat (or cool if you have whole house AC) and pull the air throughout the house. Boilers heat water and pump through the radiators throughout the house.
Agreed. I had a boiler at one house in NY. I think it was warmer in that house than with forced air.
Some U.S. houses do have boilers and radiators but furnaces are more common in newer houses.
@@mikehermen3036 that's cause many of them also have an ac unit attached outside. Making them full HVAC. Which I think he showed us in a previous video.
Yes, boilers deal with heating water, furnaces with heating air. I found this online from the Dept. of Energy: Furnaces heat air and distribute the heated air through the house using ducts. Boilers heat water, and provide either hot water or steam for heating. Steam is distributed via pipes to steam radiators, and hot water can be distributed via baseboard radiators or radiant floor systems, or can heat air via a coil.
@@TimeLady8 My 1933 house has a boiler and it's much warmer than the 1910 house I had with forced air.
Turn up the water heater temp. No need to turn off electricity. The other object on the floor is a gas burner for gas fireplace logs. Without the attached fire pan, it is a gas log lighter.
Yes, I can confirm that the odd looking tray on the floor with the flex pipe is the burner that goes under a set of gas fireplace logs.
He mentioned in the video that they had the gas disconnected from the fireplace, and showed the crappy work the "professional" had done. Whoever did the work ought to have cleaned that extra putty off the cap and strapped that dangling pipe to a floor joist if they didn't want to remove the pipe entirely. That much unsupported pipe is probably a code violation, especially since the ballcock is right there near the end of the dangling part.
Just go ahead and turn up the water temperature. No need to turn off power.
Good advice from viewers.
It’s not an electric water heater that water heater may not even have electricity hooked up to it if it has a pilot light.
Lawrence, you can certainly clean out those spider webs if you want to (it is your house, after all), but consider this: they're set up where they are because insects and other creepy crawlies are moving through that area. If you get rid of the spiders, the insects will still pass through that area, but now with nothing catching and killing them, so they'll be able to move through your house at will. The spider you'd most want to worry about inside a house in most of the United States is a brown recluse, and they don't build webs. They go out roving around looking for insects instead (part of the reason they're dangerous -- most other spiders, you avoid the webs, and you're good to go) and their bite can leave nasty scars. The little dudes and dude-ettes in the webs are just happily converting all the critters that want to get into your flour and sugar and such into tasty spider snacks.
My spiders and I have an agreement -- they can live peacefully as long as they stay in the basement. And usually brown recluses are found in the more humid climates to the south.
Alao good to note not only are house spiders evolved to live with us, but most of their bites can't even break our skin WERE they aggressive, they will run from you in an instant if they're feeling vulnerable and will pretty much just keep running too
I lived in bumfuck florida for 14 years and I can assure you that brown recluses most definitely build webs. Though they tend to be the funnel type and are usually used for living space and ambush sites.
Cellar spiders are cool. Ever since I found a dead yellowjacket in one of their webs, we've been friends. Anything that kills yellowjackets can live with me.
woodrobin, the ones (that you most commonly see) that don't build webs and go out hunting for prey are wolf spiders. i grew up in the Ozarks in an old wood house and they were all over (shiver). You rarely actually see brown recluses. They tend to hide, thus the name. Most people are bitten handling wood from a wood pile, putting on shoes, rolling over on one that is under bedding, etc.
We actually have boilers here in the USA too. Our house is fitted with one. The British norm is an actual boiler, which is probably why everything eventually got called a boiler. That water cylinder in your Airing Cupboard was likely heated by a boiler which is also typical. When using a boiler, a smaller cylinder is used to provide immediate hot water as it takes a moment for the water to get hot, and a buffer tank takes the few seconds of running water out of the equation. You can sometimes see a combi boiler in the USA fitted with one. Also, I found that setting the hot water to setting B provides a good bath temp on our hot water tank. There is no power for that tank, and it lights up using a pilot light so no power is needed.
My sister basically has a boiler herself, although the water is sent through small floor radiators that look nothing like the old large steam radiators.
Boilers and furnaces are two different beasts. You had boilers in England to heat hot water to heat the home, I bet this older home at one point did the same. It was converted to a furnace to heat and cool the air so the home had a more even heat and was able to handle A/C
yes
And we still have boilers in the U.S. Our old house is steam heat and has a boiler :)
@@sbel1175 It's typically the better choice if you have a large space where you're using embedded heating in the floor rather than forced air for heat. My house has a bit of both and the embedded system is newer than the forced air, for heating you can't beat having the warmth originate in the floor of the basement with a tiny assist upstairs, no cold spots anywhere.
@@sbel1175 My house as well! Built in 1923 and located in Detroit. I love it, although I need to replace some radiator vents.
Ty Anthony for clearing this up! I was also confused when he said they were same thing. Although, I've never had a "boiler" - just furnaces, I understood them as 2 diff things.
Lawrence, a simple yet important aspect of maintaining a forced-air system is to periodically replace the air filter. Doing so will ensure the equipment is running efficiently. Cheers!
Here's a hint - when you head to the home store to buy your furnace filter, buy extras. Depending upon the filter, you'll want to replace them every three or six months, and when the time comes you just want to do it, not spend weeks browbeating yourself for forgetting to pick one up.
They look to be located in that box between the furnace and the big cold air return box. Your gas water heater can be turned up without worry, it's not connected to the electricity.
The faucet at the bottom of your water heater is for the ease of draining a few gallons of water periodically to remove scale from the bottom.
Yes, you’ll want to change the furnace filter to help breathe better because it traps dust and will make the furnace run efficiently. The measurements are along the edge-I take a picture with me before heading to Ace, Lowe’s or Home Depot. There are videos online or HVAC courses at junior colleges.
I write the date on the filter of when I changed it.
About your fireplace: if it had a gas log with a gas line running to it, it might not be safe to use it as a wood burning fireplace. Our house is about the same age as yours and was advertised as having a wood burning fireplace. We used it that way for one winter, then called in chimney sweeps to clean it. They told us the chimney was not lined and the fireplace shouldn’t be used for burning wood. There is a danger of a creosote buildup inside the chimney and a chimney fire, which could burn down the house. That explained the mysterious hole in the floor next to the fireplace. It was where the gas line once ran. I ran another gas line and we now have a nice gas fireplace. Do thou the same.
Absolutely agreed. *DO NOT* use a fireplace in a home until you have had it properly inspected.
Your actually Set for a Ventless Gas log setup. Hire some plumbers get the gasline running again and have them install the logs. They are Very nice but really on a pilot light.
There are Some other options such as installing a full wood burning insert metal lined, insulated to the the top and Capped. As for the whole lining shit Stick your head into the fireplace open the door and look up with a light Look for Orange clay tiles a good 1-2 feet above the damper door. You are lined if you see them but if you see them offset or visible Verticale cracks or even the liner for your furnace these a big nono's to keep in mind and your taking a risk with a fire as the creosote builds up drys out and expands until it ignites in the crevices you cant clean and it burns bright and hot bricks glow red from fires like that and is why the liner is needed It makes it easier to clean the Creosote away while also acting a a thermal barrier to the bricks.
Gas runs stupid clean our company recommends any Vented ones get done every 5 years but that is more to remove any critters that made their way in than to clean it. Oil is dirty and is a 3 year regular maintenance unless the pipe installers were brain dead and travels horizontally more than 2 feet then i would recommend yearly and to also move the damn furnace closer to the chimney or just switch to gas and direct vent out the wall. Vented Gas logs are just the same as Gas furnaces and add Gas stoves as well(Gas stoves however have the caveat of being wasp attractors so use it regularly to avoid nests being built.) Fireplaces from Bare to Woodstoves Freestanding or inserts, Pellet Stoves, and coal stoves all are yearly cleans or beginning of season and end of season cleans if you burn ALOT.
Now there is One last thing. Dont trust a Chimney guy unless they are wearing a Cert card on them. Much like Servsafe there is a loophole that only requires the HEAD of the company to be certified. A responsible and law abiding companies sends certified employees or pairs with one certified and the other to do grunge work they will also have a 4 or five digit ID number tied to the Cert that you can use to look up if they are truly certified By law they are supposed have that number on any inspection paper they write. The reason why we say this lately in our area there is a mob run companies trying to sell 50$ pipes as liners a proper liner for a single story chimney is 1k-2k alone depending on the application.
Also if you go for a sweep that is 80$ I guarantee you they are the scammers they will only have ladders and pipes on their car. No cleaning brushes and poles/viper roll, no hepivac, and most damningly no dump bucket for Creosote, Ash, and Animals.
I am a natural gas professional. You should not be operating a gas log set in a fireplace that is unsafe for wood burning. Wood burns much more dirtily than natural gas (can be optimized to put off no dangerous gases), so chimneys should be cleaned yearly minimum. Due to the much cleaner, nature of gas logs, if you start with a clean fireplace and chimney, you should not have to actually have the chimney cleaned ever again. However, especially for a traditional masonry fireplace and chimney. You should have it inspected every couple years and maintained. Likewise the gas logs will need some type of servicing every 1 to 5 years typically depending on usage and conditions. The piece of hardware you were examining that had ‘poo’ in it, is a burner for a vented gas log set. Probably removed after you smelled gas. Likely the control valve on that unit has gone bad.
Gas logs in general are much lower maintenance and easier to use on a daily basis. But are never going to be “as real” as a woodburning fire, if you burn wood make sure the hole from the gas line is properly sealed/repaired so there is no possibility of fire migrating through it to outside the firebox. If you do want gas logs, a high quality ventfree set of gas logs is often the best choice. As they are engineered to burn clean, such that you can close the damper as desired to capture more of the heat into your home. The entire fireplace and chimney still needs to meet standards for wood-burning or be designed exclusively for ventfree logs. Most definitely you should hire a professional to maintain your appliances and ask them relevant questions while they’re there so that you can be less ignorant of the equipment within your home and manage it as needed between professional visits. If they are unwilling to provide basic information, they are not providing the service that they should be. But let them inspect and diagnose your system before you’re asking most your questions. It saves everybody time and money, if the general public has basic functional knowledge and can avoid many dangerous situations. But there is a reason why these professions exist. So much of their knowledge will be above your head. And it may be hard to understand everything they tell you. Good luck!
@@8.6GivenAdqVacSysm No i disagree to fucking hell and back with that. You don't want ignorant customers fearing for their life at just looking at what they own. Your comment reads like a Scammer telling a customer that they "HAVE TO DO THIS OR THEY DIE". Christ do you have that poor of customer service skills to not realize that shit?
Also the fact you say Ventless gas logs can have a damper open or closed shows you don't even understand CODE Ventless logs REQUIRE the Damper to be Braced Shut at All times. Quit LARPing and go back to School.
thank you thank you thank you I just about had a heart attack when he mentioned using logs in his formerly gas fireplace! this is important information!
In the Midwest, finding a good HVAC person is essential! Your home is a huge investment and proper maintenance is critical to protecting it. A good professional will help you understand the things you can do yourself such as filter changes and the things that only a professional should handle. The company I use is 3rd generation. Gary did the original installation 30 years ago and my last service call was by his two granddaughters. Great service all around.
The biggest problem we have had is finding a good HVAC guy. Had one fantastic one who retired and since then I think I would do a better job myself than the ones I have hired, even though they were supposedly good.
Luckily my husband recently retired & has been able to diagnose any difficulties we have had. But then, he has had both mechanical and electrical training both at college and on the job. Plus, there are videos on how to fix different furnace problems. Would not do anything with the natural gas pipes, but the other parts may be done.
You can turn up your water temp without any problems with electricity. They are 2 separate systems.
Video has been out 11 hours and there are over 1000 comments, most of them incredibly giving and helpful to Lawrence on his furnace. American kindness at its best.
Many Americans pride themselves on maintaining these. Me included and I'm the lady of the family. lol Just comes with the territory to educate the adorable Brit. I think it's cute he's just learning now.
JFYI- CZcams is a WORLD wide sensation. There is not telling where various comments on here are coming from.
@Phillip Banes I think their point is more "why are we assuming this is America-centric as if we're the only people in the world with this technology?" I'd also point out this sort of behavior is the very reason we look like jerks to other countries.
@@better.betteracting like someone else is smug foesnt cover up your own smugness
@@snappybabby4646 Chances are if the video is about a quintessentially American thing, the people in the comments being helpful or giving insight are also American, especially if said comments are in American English.
If this was a video about something quintessentially British, chances are the people in the comments being helpful or giving insight are also British, especially if said comments are in British English. Same for Canada, Australia, or between any other countries that share a first language.
Unless every comment is explicitly stating that they're American, no, there is no definitive proof that they're American, but not everything needs to be so obvious. Context clues.
That thing at around 4:30 is your gas meter. The thing at 6:25 is a small water pump. Presumably you have Air Conditioning too and the condensation from that goes into the little box and then gets pumped to a drain elsewhere. Some houses would have a floor drain near the furnace that it would just drain into and then you don't need one of those. It also looks like you might have a humidifier (at 6:31) and that also has runoff that goes into that pump.
6:44 This is to monitor the humidity of the air in your house. The meter is on your return air so it is reading the humidity of the "fresh air" entering your furnace. It appears to me that you likely have an Aprilaire humidifier on the side of your plenum (grey box with a couple hoses coming out of the bottom of it). The hose supplies water to the humidifier which sprays a mist into your heated air which helps the air to "feel" warmer (or cooler with the AC). The meter is reading what it's set to provide and what the actual level is. Obviously (maybe not...) the humidity in your house can fluctuate higher than the setting from the natural humidity in the air. It is capable of ADDING humidity to the air, but not removing it, so it will fluctuate higher than the settings, but if it goes lower, the humidifier will kick on and bump it up.
Surprised it would be set to 25% that's too low. The Sahara desert is 20% humidity. At that level you'd expect sore throats, dry skin and probably damage to the wood work in the home, including cracked caulking and other issues. Set it to 35% at the lowest. And make sure you change your humidifier pad...it's in the beige box mentioned above.
@@elliotalderson4568 The recommended relative humidity changes from 15% to 45% depending on outside temperature and personal preference. Fancier humidifiers have an outdoor temperature sensor so it will automatically change the relative humidity setting.
@ApollosEclipse true, humidity levels have to change with temps outside. If you have too much moisture in the air when it's below freezing, you're asking for moisture/mold issues in the stud cavities and attic areas. There are charts showing recommended percent humidity to temperature online.
@@notinside1 its not just that there are health risks for too dry and too humid. Bloody noses and the ability to breathe are the two extremes you want a nice balance and 25-30% is a typical universal setting for indoors at 60-70F
@snintendog sure it is in a perfect world. This type of work is what I do (building science) . I have many hours of training and seminars on this. Indoor humidity levels are dictated by OUTSIDE temp. The colder dryer outside there is a stronger drive for the moisture to that environment. Trapping moisture in your walls and attic with a high likelihood of causing mold/mildew issues. I guess overall it's your decision if you want to feel comfortable with higher humidity or if you don't want moisture issues with your house.
If you burn logs in your fireplace be sure to have the chimney inspected (especially if it’s brick and mortar) before you burn wood in it. We had a chimney fire when I was young and what had happened was the mortar deteriorated on the side against the wood frame of the house and almost started a fire. Luckily our local fire department had a special chemical “stick” they tossed into the wood burner and it not only smothered the fire in the burner but also the fire going through the mortar.
And make sure the handle that opens and closes the damper (?) in the flue (sp) works. Although maybe they would've found that during the inspection.
@@sharonduffey your spelling was correct on both counts (and damper is indeed what it's called). :)
For anyone reading this, you can buy those "chemical sticks" yourself and I encourage everyone with a wood burning fireplace to have one. They are called Chimfex and can be found online and probably your local hardware store.
I would add, not all gas fireplaces can even burn logs, depending on the original installation
Also, not all fireplaces are designed for burning wood. A lot of homes had coal fireplaces which were retrofitted for gas, and they can't safely burn wood.
Perhaps the most important thing you found in the furnace room, is the house-shaped sticker or magnet below the humidity meter on the duct. It is likely the name and phone number of the company that has serviced the unit in the past. They will know all the stuff you need to know,(as well as a bunch of stuff you don't) and you should contact them for cleanings at least once a year.
THIS!!
+
Nice catch spotting the sticker. I was going to suggest to Laurence to see if there was a maintenance sticker with H/VAC company that serviced/installed the furnace/AC/hot water tank in case he needed to call to have his units checked.
This ^^^
Another good idea is to clean... or have cleaned the heating ducts every five or six years. You will be amazed at the amount of buildup they accumulate. My cat loves dropping stuff down through grate in my upstairs bathroom. I think it is the rattling ass they fall. I have learned too put earrings and necklaces into my jewelry bow rather than wait for the next duct cleaning. Cleaning also helps limit the dust you breathe in.
Don't worry, you didn't confuse me with the use of the word "boiler". We also have boilers, though getting rarer these days I think. Boiler=boiling water. These transport hot water to radiators and heat homes. Furnace=hot air. These use fire to heat air directly, then transport that hot air through air ducts. My old house had a boiler and it was the best heat because it didn't affect the humidity of the house and directly heated the exterior facing walls so there were no cold spots getting through.
In highschools we have "boiler rooms" as well as many apartment complexes. It's an efficient way to heat large amounts of water and keep it hot. I've never run out of hot water with a boiler. My standard water heater though runs out in 15 minutes
@@redbeardreturns3550 if you run out of hot water in 15 minutes that means you’ve got either a tankless water heater or there’s a problem with your tank heater lol
@@charlesbrown4483 Depends on the size and age of his heater. Average shower flow rate is 2.1 Gallons per minute. A 50 Gallon tank will be expended in 23 minutes at full hot. A 30 gallon would be 14 or so minutes. So an old 50 that hasnt been regularly cleaned can quite likely be expended in 15 minutes at full hot.
During the cold snap right before Christmas my furnace went on the fritz. Due to the fact that the HVAC people were extremely busy and charging mandatory overtime, I learned a great deal about furnaces and furnace repair. Luckily one of the guys from my HVAC company ran through a number of things it could be and pointed me in the right direction. I'm fairly technically minded and have a good multimeter, so that helps. CZcams was also very informative. While I got it working, I would recommend most people leave it up to the professionals. In a pinch though, a capable person can figure it out.
We did the same, but my husband also has the technical training and equipment that you had. CZcams was very helpful though..
Actually you may really have a furnace vs a boiler. It is a furnace if it has forced hot air but if you have radiators to heat the rooms then you do have a boiler and that is much more common in the UK.
He says later in the video that it is called a furnace in the US.
indeed. A boiler heats water or oil and runs it through pipes to radiators. A furnace heats air that blows through air ducts.
I grew up in a house with forced hot water through baseboards. Radiators are only seen in houses that havenp't updated since the 20s. Either way it's not really a boiler as the water is not boiling. Unless of course you have a truly ancient steam heat system.
and to further complicate that, you can also have a boiler that runs hot water to forced air system as well. Forced air systems typically run in tandem with a gas furnace, but they can also be heated by “radiant heat” aka hot water pipes. Some people prefer them because they can also be tied into more traditional radiant heat systems like “radiators” throughout a home… as well as not drying out the air in a home as much as a gas furnace. Due to this drying out of the air by furnaces, they tend to have humidifiers built into them as seen by that white thing on the side. Sincerely, an architect who frequently has to decipher and draw existing building systems and then design incorporated or new ones….. 🤪 oh yeah, and they sometimes have additional units in the attic.. and don’t get me started on air conditioning and heat pumps… radiant floor heating… geothermal.. etc.
I came to say this! Be thankful you don’t have a boiler with radiators. We had them in college. Poor temperature control and loud. Furnace heats air, boiler, well, it boils things.
No need to turn off the power to the water heater. Just turn that dial and you're good!
Also, I believe that display is for a humidifier. 25% is the setpoint and the 35% is the actual humidity in the house. If you ever notice you're getting shocked all the time from static electricity you might want to bump up that setpoint. Hope this helps!
There’s no sense in having a humidifier if it is set to 25%. It should be at least 40%.
@@johnp139 30-40% depending on where you live. In arid climates if you can get to 40% (you basically can’t) you’ll have condensation on the windows (bad).
@@johnp139 It is definitely varies from house to house, based on personal tastes, how cold it is, and also the region in which you live. If you go too far north in the United States, it's not uncommon to see settings at 10% and 15%. When it gets much colder than 40f your furnace runs way more often, and pumps out more moisture with each cycle. So, if ever you notice your windows are getting foggy inside (or worse, actually generating water and dripping down to your frames) you need to turn that humidistat down, right quick. It'll save you mold, mildew, and water-damage to your window-frames. The house humidity will usually be higher than the humidity setting you have picked because that depends on how often your furnace it cycling on. If it's literally running nonstop, because you don't particularly care for the cold, that's perfectly fine; just make sure you drop your humidistat way down to compensate for how often your furnace cycles.
The humidifier adds moisture to the air. If the outside air is a higher humidity than what your unit is set to, the actual humidity in the house will be higher than it is set to. The humidifier cannot remove water.
(If you have problems with excessive humidity you can buy a separate dehumidifier.)
@@raychristy5027 same in NC. I live in a brand new apartment with a very modern HVAC system and we're never at less than 65% humidity indoors.
For American furnaces there's one essential, easy thing to do for typical-homeowner maintenance:
Get the dimensions of your filter at the air intake grate, buy enough to always have a spare and replace it when it's brown.
For most people that's once a year or two, but for others it could be every few months depending on air quality, pets, the traffic in that part of the house...
The filters are cheap and easy to get at places like walmart or multipurpose stores, the intake grate is usually the biggest in the house, and it takes maybe 10 minutes and a screwdriver to swap filters and dispose of the spent one.
The tray thing in the corner with the dark build-up/debris are a set of gas logs for a fireplace, minus the logs. they are probably the kind that needs venting, so probably an older model and for looks. Newer models are more efficient and are vent-free (always check before you buy!)
Or it's a gas starter for a wood burning fireplace, which is what it looks like to me. The tray is to catch the ashes from the burnt wood.
1) I recommend getting an alarm that will sound if your hot water tank leaks. They typically consist of a battery case connected by wire to a sensor that is laid on the floor. If the sensor gets wet, the alarm emits a high-pitched noise that will wake almost anyone. Costs about only $10 and it might save you a lot of money one day, especially if the water tank develops a slow leak.
2) At 6:49, that digital panel controls a furnace humidifier. You're fortunate to have one for your forced hot air furnace, so that you need not endure the dry air of winter when indoors. You did not show us the mechanism, but mine requires a small amount of maintenance: an occasional cleaning (usually when it's turned on in the autumn and off in the spring), and the filter needs to be replaced periodically (probably once or twice per year). The lower humidity percentage on the control panel is likely a measurement of the outside air (there should be a wire leading outside to a humidity sensor).
And with multiple gas burning devices in that one room, consider a CO2 alarm as well.
@w49660 do you mean CO(carobo monoxide) and not CO2(carbon dioxide).
Carbon monoxide poisoning is a serious matter, I'm sure there is one installed elsewhere in the basement for safety. Many towns require
Installation of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Replace your CO detectors every few years as there is a shelf life on these items.
I think the two percentages are (1) what the unit is set for, and (2) what the humidity in the house is now. It looks like the humidistat is mounted on the return-air duct into the furnace, which is a good place for it IF you only need to add humidity during the heating season. IMO having it set to 25% is too low, but humidistats can be wildly inaccurate, so people need to use their own judgment.
Nobody ever cleans those things, I can almost guarantee that it's absolutely gross.
I'm not far from Chicago where he is. The weather doesn't get anywhere near as cold for as long as it used to. No real need for a furnace humidifier in this climate, in my opinion. If it was mine, I'd just shut it off.
Others have already commented that you can turn the water heater's temperature setting control, without turning any electricity off. Just move it one notch warmer and later, see if it's hot enough. If not, increase it again, until you have the water temperature to your liking. I really enjoy your videos! ❤
Exactly. Change the temperature very gradually, so you don't crank it up so high you burn yourself.
Also of note, there is a setting there for vacation. When you go on vacation, turn it down to this level to conserve energy. Then first thing when you get home, turn it back up to where it belongs. DOn't worry, because gas water heaters are fast. Even if the water is ice cold in the pipes, you will have usable water in a couple hours.
I thought the same thing as I've always had gas water heaters but apparently it's considered bad practice to adjust an electric heater with the power on because the high voltage components are very close to the adjustment knob and it's in an area that could be wet. If everything is in great shape there won't be any problems but if something's wrong you could get a very nasty 220v shock.
@@jmuench420 I seriously never knew any of this, but then I never had an electric WH.
Gas all the way.
I grew up with furnaces. But these days I don’t know anyone with one anymore. Out here on Canadas’s west coast, we’ve now gone mostly electric for heat. Which is awesome. :-)
Pro-tip 1. The risk of scalding is really only when you open just the hot water at the tap. Which is never done, you always use a mix of hot and cold. Run both at half and either turn up for increased pressure to temp, or turn down for slower run to temp. Unless you're in the shower and someone decides to flush the toilet. Then, well... you might come out looking a bit lobstery. You can run the water heater at a lower setting if you like, but honestly, the hotter you have it, the less hot water you need to run for a comfortable temp, which means every full tank cycle will last longer. You just might have to run the gas a little more.
Pro-tip 2. That appears to be an analog control box for your water heater. When the water heater craps out (and it will at some point), be sure to get one with a digital control box. They operate the same, with one big except... the digital control box will have a status light indicator that blinks, and makes it very easy to tell if the heater's pilot light is lit. With yours, you will have to get all the way down, remove a cover at the base, and peer into this tiny little window to check if there is a flame.
Pro-tip 3. The left side of your furnace has the humidifier catch tray (for excess run-off) and the main furnace switch. You can use that switch to shut the furnace off, without having to manually trip the breaker, when needed. Such as replacing the HEPA air filter (more on that next tip). The catch tray should be fine with the tubes running the water out, but if you ever notice the furnace running the entire time without any water being bled out, you may have to empty the catch tray.
Pro-tip 4. The small box in the middle between the furnace (left) and the main air duct (right) contains the air filter. Judging by your furnace make (I have the same), it is likely 20x25x4, but you can clearly identify the size on the air filter itself. You should, at the very least, replace it at the beginning of Fall for the furnace, preferably adding a second change in the middle of Winter. If you have central air conditioning (likely), add a third change at the end of Spring, and you should be good. Changing is simple, just flip the switch, pull the door to the air filter compartment, pull out the air filter (take note of the arrow directions on the filter, as they point the way of the air flow... but it should be from right to left on that unit), slide the new one in, replace the door, and turn it back on. You can pick up filters from just about any hardware store, including Home Depot and Lowes'.
We always called the water heater the "hot water heater". Despite the fact that the water doesn't need to be heated once it's already hot
We did too, kinda redundant isn't it?!
That’s dumb
It's called that to differentiate it from a device that heats water for room heating or other purposes. A "hot water heater" is a heater that provides your hot water.
Buildings with boilers have hot water and steam heaters. They keep it simple for the bewildered.@@bunkyman8097
stop stealing Lawrence's material.😁
Now you need to purchase your first tool box so that you can learn how to fix all of these wonderful things you've discovered 😃
One major thing you need to know about your furnace: Filters. Find out what kind of filter you have and replace it yearly in the fall or you're going to have cold winters. You can find filters for under $20 at home Depot depending on how hypoallergenic you want to go.
They need to be changed every 3 months.
@@ARTSIEBECCA that depends on the system and filter. Once a year is the bare minimum across them all. I change mine every 6 months, it has the 4 inch thick ones that are 30$ each
Fun episode! Thank you, Lawrence!
Don't forget to change your furnace filters every few months year round. That air handler runs during air conditioning as well(making the filter dirty). You'll want to familiarize yourself with the MERV rating. It's a measurement of what a given filter has the ability to catch on a scale of 1-20. Some can't even stop dust mites and others are used for highly sensitive cleanrooms. You'll probably land somewhere in the middle. Ratings of 11 and 13 are very common for a high indoor air quality.
Keep in mind too that most furnaces and A frames for the A/C have a specific rating that is also based on the filter used. If you go higher on the filter rating, it will impede airflow, and can cause the A/C to freeze up.
Project Farm here on CZcams has a fantastic video testing and rating a wide range of different filters. They all kinds of tests for a variety of very different things, from motor oil to boots and jeans to duct tape, all kinds of things. I highly suggest his videos.
He should also make sure to vacuum out the vents, especially if any are in the floor. They're nasty things.
Its looks like he has an Electrostatic air filter.
@@ltsiver This. I have allergies and use those filters, but I change them every month. In extreme cases, if you have air coming OUT of the return vents, then most likely the problem is that the filter is dirty.
That's your gas meter, with the number dials. It tells you and the gas company how many cubic feet of natural gas you used. The pipes running to the left are a pressure relief valve which let's the natural gas vent outside if the gas company loses pressure regulation, so the flame in your furnace doesn't get too big and burn the house down. BTW it's a furnace if it heats air for heating house, it's a boiler if it creates steam to heat the house, it's a water heater if it heats water to provide hear to the house.
I've only owned houses in the Portland, Oregon area, I've never seen a gas meter in a basement (for that matter, newer houses in the area simply don't have basements). They're on the side of the house here.
@@buckysrevenge The meters are normally only installed indoors of older homes. Modern recommendations are to install outdoors to minimize danger if there is a gas leak.
@@brucewalton1886 Foundation shifting can cause the service entrance pipe to break - one reason meters are now outside. Older practice was to put them inside, it's not rare.
Nowadays, the gas meter and regulator are installed outside the house, so the meter reader doesn't have to come to the door. Same thing also apples to electric meters. Water meters, unfortunately are still installed inside, so they don't freeze in the cold winter. Installing the regulator outside means there is no need for an equalizing pipe.
Oh yeah, cubic feet.
Forgot about that. I haven't used gas in twenty years.
I love this channel and your comparisons it's very humorous. Please keep it up.
6:30 -- The reason there's a discrepancy between the humidity setting and the current humidity is that the setting is how low the humidity needs to get before the humidifier will start adding water vapor into the furnace air. So, if your current humidity is 35% and it's set to a trigger point of 25%, it's currently not letting any water in. If the humidity in the house where to drop below 25% (which isn't uncommon in the winter in many parts of the United States), it will let a trickle of water into an evaporator and the furnace airflow will pass over that and pick up humidity that it will distribute throughout the house. That blue canister in the middle of the copper line that you panned by is a water filter to make sure that the water is as free of minerals as possible, because hard water would leave deposits and clog up the evaporator pretty quickly.
A boiler in America is a heating system which involves heating water to heat the house. What you have is just a gas furnace in American terms.
If you had a gas fireplace, you need to make sure it can handle wood before you burn, it's quite possible you don't have enough ventilation to handle wood.
Considering the age of the home I'd say the gas was a conversion from a wood fire place.
Some American houses, particularly older ones in the northeast, do have boilers. Those are ones that are heated with radiators, like in the UK. A boiler heats water for radiators while a furnace heats air for vents. You might want to update your furnace to a newer one, because modern ones have 96% efficiency, while yours probably has 70-80% efficiency. Also, that thing that said "cubic feet" on it is your water meter, so that the utility can bill you for water.
That thing with "cubic feet" on it is his NATURAL GAS METER, not his water meter!
Also there is a distinction between boiler and a furnace. You have a boiler for forced hot water heating, either radiators or baseboard heaters. Furnace can be a generic term but typically refers to forced hot air heating like you have there.
If you have radiators and baseboard heaters (water that has gets hot and goes through the system) you have a boiler. If you have heat that has is blown through air ducts you have a furnace.
just wait til you have to explain geothermal. 🤣
At 4:15, the metal tray is a gas log burner for your fireplace, minus the ceramic logs. Either that was pulled out to burn wood or you have a newer gas burning log set installed, at which you can throw that out. The black stuff is just unburnt carbon deposits.
Probably left in the basement after they cut off the supply to the living room fireplace... Too bad they didn't dispose of it after they removed it.
@@adriandavis3908 my thoughts exactly. And the other thing is that the old gas pipe looks to be about 8-10 feet long and totally unsupported, no hangers of any kind. That can't be to code.
@@jonpattison Yes, he need to put a hanger at the end or get someone to do it for him. Overtime that could cause a leak.
Make sure your fireplace flue is rated for logs prior tp burning them. If the fireplace was originally set up for gas and fake logs the fle pipe may not be rated for actual wood logs.
Checks out. I thought of a gas grill interior when he showed it.
I catch myself grinning while watching all of your videos ☺ you make the most mundane things humorous!
the gas pipe at 7:12 needs a hanger to support it, the weight of the pipe itself with vibrations or someone grabbing/hitting it can cause the pipe to develop a leak or break off at the other end. the best would be having a plumber come and remove that pipe all together
Laurance makes watching videos about boring house stuff funny and interesting
Agreed.🙂
I really do think Laurence bought a house to make more videos haha. Never thought I'd be watching an eight minute video on furnaces but here I am. Thanks for making the smallest and mundane things interesting.
He also gets more comments from homeowners and specialists teaching him about his home.
Don’t feel bad. It’s not something I planned on doing either. Especially at 7:30 on a Saturday morning. And I don’t even have a house. I’m thinking of moving into a tiny home on wheels. AKA a van!
You didn't watch a video about furnaces. You watched a video about someone who rarely blinks and his blatant ignorance about home appliances in the U.S.
@@user-vm5ud4xw6n Down by the river, perhaps?
@@snappybabby4646 Well, at least he was modest about his ignorance; we have plenty of people getting all loud about theirs. My next step is to become ignorant and turn a profit; seems to work well for politicians in both countries I daresay.
We have a boiler & a furnace in our house. We have in floor radiant heat via the boiler as our main source of heating. The furnace is our backup heat source but primarily used for the air conditioning.
I used a biga to make a whole wheat bread once. It worked out well - giving the whole wheat flour the extra time to hydrate made it a little softer so I got a bit more gluten than I usually do with whole wheat.
Had to laugh at your being in the boiler room. We in America call it a utility room or simply, just the basement. My grandson just purchased his first home, as well, and it is a real learning experience ! His home is older than yours, but has been updated. You learn by trial & error sometimes, but eventually you'll figure it out. It gets expensive calling the experts !
Or in larger/older buildings they're still boiler rooms. My church, for example, uses actual boilers. On occasion my dad has to go in and clear out the crap people stupidly put in front of working machinery 🫣🤣
Or a mechanical room.
I call it the water closet. because that's where the hot water is stored.
@@PittsburghGal85 Years ago, the phys-ed center at the small college where my dad worked, caught fire because morons stored pole-vaulting landing pads on top of a furnace.
We call it the furnace room in Pennsylvania
From what I could tell, Lawrence, that furnace room looks likely to be the safest room in the house if there should be a tornado warning. It is best to be aware of the place to go as one tends to get flustered when the tornado sirens go off, and you can see Dorothy picked up by the winds and yelling "oh, sh...!"
Thomas MacDiarmid, as I remember, she said, "Toto!" and "Auntie Em!"
@@jimgreen5788 I know. I was making a joke bringing the exclamation up to modern expectations
In case Lawrence actually sees this message - make sure you go around and find out how you can turn off the water and gas going into your house. I imagine both are probably in that room - the gas is likely near the gas meter (the thing you weren't too sure of), and the water will likely have some other kind of meter attached.
As others have said, the water heater is gas, so can be adjusted without any worry of accidentally killing yourself. The weird box on the side of the furnace is a pump to drain the condensate from the built-in air conditioning exchanger. (one of the reasons it's far bigger than the other picture you shared - a lot of British homes don't have air conditioning - just the furnace unit is far smaller)
@@absentmindedjwc *Laurence
You have the spelling incorrect. Auntie Emm does not start with the letters sh. 😛
I had a Trane furnace just like that in the duplex we rented as well as a newer version in our house now. The only part I'm not as comfortable messing with is the gas supply lines but everything else in it is fully user serviceable if you know anything about electricity. I've had to replace a few things on our house model. From the latex tubing for the pressure switches to wiring for the switches and igniter. Also had to solder on the wiring from the switch to the gas valve controller. It should be on a completely different circuit and thus something you can shut off power to without turning off anything else.
The gas pipe you had capped off appears to need support. From what I can see you have a long pipe without any strapping holding it up. That can lead an even more dangerous leak.
Yup, whatever "professional" that was did a very crappy job
I saw the same thing and about crapped my pants. If someone hangs something on that pipe...look out! Get that thing supported are just remove it completely. Its an accident waiting to happen.
I don’t know why you can’t turn up the hot water heater. The electric system shouldn’t matter if its a gas hot water heater.
Even if he did, there's breakers. Turn off the electric, adjust, turn it back on. I mean I know he said he's having it looked at but there's a huge chasm between current electrical code and wildly unsafe. Unless they paid cash they got it Inspected and it was safe enough for the bank to underwrite the loan and the homeowners insurance to cover. I too live in an old Midwestern home, my electrical is not up to current code, it is not unsafe. Code can mean dumb shit like the railing on stairs being flush to wall being current code. Or water pipes being pex instead of cast iron.
Furnaces and Boilers are two different things. The important looking thing with dials that compensate is a gas meter, it meters out the gas for your home so the gas company knows how much to charge you. The stuff attached to your furnace is a condensate pump which will direct water that forms when the Air Conditioner runs in the summer to a drain. Have your furnace and other equipment inspected annually. Change your furnace filter frequently, depends on your air quality and filter recommendations.
Finally, one might call that room a mechanical room of the house. Since all the important stuff happens down there. Other things that might be locate in a mechanical room, but are probably located elsewhere in your home is the breaker panel with the houses electrical breakers inside and the water meter, which is similar to the gas meter.
I love this video. I work in hvac residential and most people wont take the time to bother to learn what you have gone as far as to make a video about. Kudos. If that water heater is 10 plus yr in service it might be due to upgrade in the next 2 to 4 years especially if you have hard water. But PLEASE make sure you have working CO detectors (carbon monoxide) installed below the headboard level of every level of the home. both your boiler and hwh are conventional vent/natural draft and those draft hoods are direct hole to the flue. If something happened to the chimney you would be in immediate danger the only warning being a CO monitor or detector.
I recommend when you upgrade go to direct vent forced air furnace and power vented hot water heater.
black thing with white top on the side of the unit is a condensate pump, pumps away water from when your AC runs on humid days and the humidifier excess. The furnace doesnt condense as it's 80% mid efficient a 90% + furnace would actually pull enough heat out of the exhaust it's below the dew point and condenses, so it would go into that pump as well.
That forced air furnace is also getting up there.. The reason it's bigger than a boiler would be is because water can hold more heat energy than air, air is a poor conductor of heat, is what wall insulation manipulates to insulate. On that same token because air is inefficient and takes longer to warm up, it stays warm a little bit longer too.. Theres the whole idea behind forced air vs hydronics..
Lawrence, you need to have a hanger ( a U-shaped support) installed on the end of that gas line that used to go to your fireplace. Hanging loose like that could make it weak and cause a leak. They're cheap and easy to install.
I was stressing out about that unsupported pipe as well.
Oooooooh, Laurence. See - so much to learn when ya buy a house. When I was looking for my first home to buy, my mom (then in her 60s) said "there are a lot of benefits to renting". She then listed some of the routine maintenance & surprise disasters that homeowners have to deal with but renters "just" call the landlord/maintenance folks. Within a few years, I was saying that same thing to my friends. There really are a LOT of benefits to renting!
@@karikells Yeah ... just call the landlord. But you have to have a landlord that wants to put money into the maintenance of the house, not all do.
A couple of the items that you mention being attached to your furnace are the humidifier which automatically sends moisture in the air so that your house does not get dried out from the hot air and the other item where you have a blue tube thing and some lines going in the area above your furnace are for your central air conditioning. Hidden behind the sheet metal on top of your furnace is a refrigeration coil that allows your entire house to be air conditioned because it uses the same fan that's attached to the bottom of your furnace to blow cold air in the summer. I'm sure if you go upstairs and look at the thermostat on your wall I'll bet you'll find a switch that you can switch either to heat or flip it to cold for the summer.
Brad was likely not mentioning this to keep it simple, the blue cylinder thing is called an Emerson liquid line filter dryer and it's purpose is to remove water from mixing with your refrigerant because moisture rusts the inside of systems but it also prevents proper change in physical state of refrigerant reducing its ability to suck as much heat (called BTU or British Thermal Units) from the air as possible. The amount of BTU required to change the state of one pound of water from liquid to gas (Latent heat or heat you cannot feel requires 970 BTU to change 1lb H2O to a gas state) is more then the amount of BTU's required to change the temperature from 32°f to 212°f (180 BTU). The definition of BTU's is One Btu is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 lb of water 1°f.
@6:25 that white thing is a condensate water pump to up condensed water from your A/C unit to outside. Your furnace does double duty with the condensing unit for your A/C attached to it. They share the fans to push the air through the ducts
You have a forced air furnace in your house. There are older buildings that still have boilers and radiators through out the home and then there are also electrical radiators/baseboard heaters. Those run along the bottom of the walls/floor and have a dial to turn the heat up or down. 😊
We still use boilers, which are used in houses with hot water heat. You can turn up the water heater without turning off your electricity.
6:27 potentially helpful: The thing with the white plastic cover that has little vent slits in is the "condensate pump". There's a big white plastic pipe leading into it from the air conditioning "evaporator coils" (the "make stuff cold" side), which will get a lot of water condensing on them because ... they're cold. And the water will drip into the pump chamber. There's also a clear plastic hose coming down from what is probably a humidifying unit. Behind the plastic pipe, there's probably ANOTHER hose that is where the pump sends the water out from to a drain somewhere not very close by. Because if it were close by, both of those things would likely empty straight there instead of bothering with the pump. That pump CAN FAIL, usually by the little float switch inside getting stuck or too corroded to work properly.
I was about to type about this and found you got it covered probably better than I would have.
It should be added that the condensate pump should be kept BELOW the level of the furnace so that the condensate can flow from the furnace. If it is raised up, the condensate will flood the inside of your furnace and eventually leak out all over your basement floor.
@@AcousticallyYours This is an 80% efficiency non-condensing furnace and does not need to drain any condensate. The pump in this installation is for the condensate drain on the A/C evaporator coil and the humidifier.
That’s a nice furnace. You also have a humidifier built into it (on the side) to help remediate the moving air drying everything out. The little black and white box collects condensation from your air con evaporator and pumps it to a remote drain.
As others have said, your water heater is natural gas. No need to turn off the electric to change it, just turn the dial. At 4:20, this contraption that you didn't know what it is, is your gas meter. On your furnace, one thing you should figure out how to do is change your air filters. You should change them every few months. Well, not in the summer unless you have AC running through the same system.
Even without AC most people likely have their thermostat fan settings set to circulate, which typically runs the fan for 30 ish percent of the time to keep the air circulated and filtered. Some people may also have a fresh air timer connected to the furnace and thermostat, the times it's set to bring in fresh air it opens a duct to the outside and forces the furnace fan to run.
So tldr is just change your filters probably regardless of season. 1 inch is typically 3 months and thicker filters are typically 6 months to a year. Always check your filter dimensions and suggested change times. Higher merv ratings should be changed more often to minimize risk of burning out the fan.
He definitely has AC as there is an evaporator mounted on top of the furnace.
Yes, and more fun facts about your Gas meter @ 4:20 :
Since it uses the passage of a volume of gas to measure the mass of the delivered product, it is only accurate at a certain temperature due to ideal gas laws. Your meter has some mechanical compensation wizardry that adjusts for “non standard” temperature.
As temperature increases, the volume of a gas increases when pressure remains constant.
Your fellow countrymen Robert Boyle and John Dalton discovered a lot of cool things (pun intended) about the behaviour of gasses related to the laws of thermodynamics.
Some French dudes, namely Gay-Lussac and Clapeyron verified their work and together with the Italian Avogadro, came up with these gas “laws”
See how long-dead Europeans are still influencing American appliances? Cool huh?
Your meter is most accurate at 60F, which should be pretty close to the average temperature in your basement.
It is interesting since 59F (15C) is the temperature of the “standard atmosphere” (at 29.92 inHg). Maybe you could do a deep dive into the construction and history of one of the meters and figure out the 1F discrepancy in “base” temperature for its compensation.
Yup, and for those living in small apartments, oftentimes the small furnace unit needs its filter replaced each and every month to be safe. Oftentimes landlords give you replacement filters for free
Who told you that you have to turn off the electricity to turn up the water heater? They’re playing with you, man.
Also a boiler and a furnace are two different things. If you have steam or water radiators, you have a boiler. If you have forced air heat, you have a furnace.
You definitely have a lot to learn 😂
Yep. Water heating: boilers. Forced air heating: furnaces. ^_^
He said doing research, so I would assume that like most water heaters they have a gas and electric version of the same model and he may have found information on the electric version, and for someone unfamiliar I could see it leading to a lot of confusion
@@budgreen4x4 if you have zero common sense.....
I’ve been in my house for 10 years and just learned this when I had to replace my boiler....
yeah they're pulling Lawrence's leg, lol
During winter months I change my furnace filter at the first of the month. I have a maintenance contract with a company that cleans the furnace and air unit every year to make sure everything is operating properly. If something happens they discount parts after the original warranty runs out. They recommended changing the filter monthly during winter.
Your furnace also includes ducting for Central Air (cooling for summer) which makes up a big part of the upper bulk of the furnace system you have. That white topped box on the left side sitting on a pipe is a pump to handle the condensation from the Central Air unit in summer months. The green cubic feet manifold on the wall is for your natural gas supply...probably should leave that one alone. Feel free to turn up the water temp on the water heater though...it's gas fired so no need to worry about the electrical when raising the temp.
Exactly what I said when he was showing it. He's got Central heat and air conditioning.
Was looking for someone mentioning the condensate pump before I commented about it lol
@@ChanceMpod Is it condensate from the A/C unit or condensate from the furnace combustion exhaust? I had assumed the latter. Maybe both?
@@cc-to He has an 80% furnace, so it doesnt produce condensation (due to exhaust gases being too hot to condense). Furnaces with PVC pipes for exhaust are considered high efficient and produce condensation, so in that case the pump would be used for both AC and furnace, yes. In this case, his pump also handles the water from the humidifier :)
Okay so a few things
1). In America what we call boilers usually refers to a hot water heating system(or steam heat). Much older house with radiators have those.
2). That weird thermostat is your controls for your furnaces built in humidifier. Your house is at 35% which means it’s not running(since its set to 25%). Honestly that’s pretty low. We usually target 40% to be comfortable and avoid dry skin in the winter.
Colorado people are like "double digit humidity in the winter? wow" :)
Very entertaining as always!
Used to live in an apart,ent now own a house. The furnaces and water heaters for an apartment are smaller typically because less demand. Even though you have this bigger one in your house it doesn’t require the whole room. That is usually storage space in most homes. Also you need to look into how to change your home from winter to summer. This involves changing fan rotation and air dampers to direct air flow.
A lot of apartments use a system where for heat they have a hot water line that the fan blows over to disperse the heat to the apartment for heating. It is an always on system with a closed loop for the water. When the warmer months come along they just shut off the water supply and the cooling can take place. In our last apartment complex we lived in two different units. The one worked fine and in spring they would come to shut the heat off. Our unit was unique in that we had direct sunlight for so long we barely used the heat at the time and the maintenance guys knew me and that I knew what I was doing so they left the closet open to be able to shut the water on or off for heat. Well we moved to a bigger unit and they set up the same thing. Went to shit the water off and the apartment had no water. Turns out they plumbers had screwed up the connections for the water and had the water supply running through the heating loop. When I called the supervisor over he thanked me and just cussed about the installers because who know how much money was wasted as well as his guys not actually shutting off the heat in summer so you utilities would have been much higher as the air was trying to overcome the heat. Our rent was reduced for a few months when I brought this up.
Final thing. Air filters. Check them and replace as needed.
Love seeing these videos. You discovering all the joys & pains of homeownership. 😄
You mentioned boilers, here's the thing in the states, we say and have both. Boilers are for houses that have radiators. I truly miss those, they were hands down the best heat. Where as forced air (ducts) has a furnace. The building I grew up in is over 100 years old. At the time we lived there it still had radiators. I don't know if any of the owners after us changed that to forced air. I hope not, each apartment had hardwood floors, thick walls, etc. That was a well built building.
Plus one for boilers and radiators in houses. Best heat ever!!
@@patrickmchose7472 yes it is!
And when you combine the two you get a hydronic forced air furnace that uses water heated externally with a boiler in place of a gas fired heat exchanger to make hot air to circulate.
So much fun! Youve got a gas heat element at minute 4:03.
Dad left one up in the garage (where I grew up). that the gas pilot light would blow out being practically outdoors , thereby teaching the family what natural gas smelled like.
As a kid, we had a wood furnace that was 6 feet across with a 2 foot opening for wood. The vents going around the house were 18 inches. Huge furnance but only had to fill it twice a day.
4:27 That is the natural gas meter.
And it should have been moved to the outside of the house years ago. If the meters are inside the house the meter reader needs to come inside in order to read the meter so the gas company knows how much gas you have burned in the billing cycle and send you a bill for that amount. If no one's home when the person comes to read the meter then much bureaucracy sets in and it's rather unpleasant.
@@bunnyslippers191 True, but if they replace or replaced it with a "smart" meter, then the gas company HQ can read it without sending anyone.
In the US, we have both furnaces and boilers. They are different things.. Furnaces circulate air, boilers circulate water (or steam).
That “stuff” on the side of your furnace is your condensate pump and the outlet and switch that powers it and the furnace. In AC, your coil will condensate and drain into that pump, which will then pump it either out of the house or into a drain.
HVAC professional here.
The woodwork and doors in your home are beautiful.
Hey Lawrence, Just as an FYI, there is a difference between a furnace and a boiler. A boiler heats water and moves steam to either radiators or in-floor heat exchangers, whereas a Furnace heats air and moves it to vents around the home. The contraption with the dials on it is your natural gas meter.
You can turn your water heater up if you want to! Yours is a gas water heater and just turn your thermostat up to the next letter and you'll have gallons of hot water and use less! Your dishes will come out a lot cleaner as well from the dishwasher!
You can get a motor to circulate the hot water so you get instant hot water. We have ours on a timer (7-8am & 6-7pm) when we need hot water the most.
That plate thing on the floor in the basement with the piping coming out of it is the old gas log burner that was in the fireplace when you bought it. The gas line was hooked up to it. It's like a really simple little gas burner with a valve and is just scrap now.
Home heating can vary quite a bit depending on how harsh winters have been in the past 100 years in the particular region of North America. In places like New England where winters are quite cold, you might find things like oil-fired boilers that send hot water to radiators (and _those,_ I'm told, is where you'd drape wet towels to dry off; certainly cleaner than doing it on an American boiler in a mechanical room)-- in fact I think that thing at 4:05 is a radiant heating thing that uses hot water. Oil is largely an old house thing or a thing for houses "so remote the gas company won't run pipes to your house"; more recent renovations would probably burn gas or use electric heat pumps.
I typically don't hear the word "boiler" in North America to refer to a large residential water heater, unless it's used as part of the HVAC system to heat the home. Some (expensive) homes will use a dual-purpose boiler to heat both the home (with radiant heat) and the hot water for the faucets and bathtubs.
Black steel pipes carry natural gas, which is probably what the fireplace had the option of burning. Depending on the age of the home, water pipes will either be copper or red/blue plastic.
If you have the hot water heater turned up but the bath is still lukewarm and the basement is cold or drafty, consider insulating the hot water pipes that you can access easily (slip foam sleeves on them). You can find that stuff at the local home improvement center.
Boilers can be stand alone in older homes with radiant baseboards water running through copper pipes radiant oil heating in homes are really old uses a boiler set up to heat the oil furnace in modern houses are air forced running a large fan for the whole house the gas is heated
Oil heating is very regional and is only still common in the Northeast states and parts of Canada that either don't have natural gas or just recently had pipes for it buried under the street. In Ontario, Canada, where I live, oil has a way higher price per BTU most of the time, so most of the old oil furnaces have been replaced with gas ones.
I would think the water heater has its own circuit breaker or fuse so you don't have to shut off the entire home's power.
That one might not have power going to it at all. It looks like a gas heater with a pilot light.
@@piratetv1 correct! And you can turn the dial while it’s running no problem at all
The little box on the side of the furnace is a condensate pump. We put those on A/C and furnaces when either there is no drain to go to or it would be inconvenient to lay the PVC to the drain. Every now and then you'll want to put in a bleach/water mixture to clean out the condensate line and keep it clear. Same with the outdoor condenser (the box looking thing with pipe going into the house) but just hose it down.
Lawrence the black foam covered line is from the air conditioner and feeds the heat exchanger so it cools the air for the house
I was going to say that you have some sort of forced air heating system like a furnace or a heat pump, rather than a boiler, but several others beat me to it. They are actually different things that perform the same functions. You can tell if you have a boiler if you also have actual pipes and radiators throughout the house. Boilers literally boil water and feed either hot water or steam into radiators around the house to provide radiant heat. The registers on your walls (those vents) mean you have a forced air system. The furnace or heat pump is heating the air and sending it through the house using the vents.
The pots of hot water lugged to the bath is always used in my home, when ya need a good hot soak . landlord isn't allowed to turn up the water . Even for washing greasy dishes in the sink .
The tray with a pipe coming out is a gas fireplace burner pan. I needs media, most likely sand, to fill it and to be hooked into a vented fireplace that has gas run. It's old though, so mostly I would say it's just trash/recyclable metal.
Don’t worry, my husband grew up in rentals and my dad taught me a lot of stuff but not about what’s in your basement so we were in our second house before we knew what a sump pump was and learned the hard way after a long power outage and big basement flood 😅 homeownership is an adventure!
My dad kept a big car battery he used to power the sump pump in case the electricity went out.
The Chicago area has the benefit of the Deep Tunnel Project, a 12 billion dollar flood control project that put an end to those problems (mostly).
@@bobv2456 A big mistake in life: That Deep Tunnel project began in '60s, and I believe just ended a couple years ago. A guy could have gotten hired in his teens, had secure job for his entire life, and retired with a defined benefit pension. (I mistakenly went the college route).
That dirty looking contraption laying on your basement floor is probably the Gas Burner that WAS located in your fireplace . It's part of a system that burns Natural Gas and makes a fairly good looking fake Fire in your Fireplace!! It was hooked up to that line you mentioned that went to the Fireplace, but you had it capped off.
My house originally had a boiler, built in 1952. It had a a hot water circulation system through the concrete slab. All the houses in my area had it, very few still do because of slabs cracking over time. They've all since moved to something else, in my case natural gas forced air. I've been in a house with a still functional boiler/floor heat. It was quite cozy, but you have no AC capacity, and that's bad in the midwest.
4:03 that is a gas fireplace log set burner tray. you are supposed to fill that with sand and "embers" provided by whichever manufacturer made it, of course you can always purchase any fireplace embers. That unit, however, looks.... "knackered" and I wouldn't use it if I were you. ~Plumber and gasfitter.
I'm slowly renovating a c.1950 Florida cottage, and can definitely feel for you! It's taken two years for my contractor to get it scheduled, but they just finished renovating my one and only bathroom! The tub was so chipped that we couldn't take baths - only showers, and the water heater was on it's last legs, too, giving us only slightly more than tepid water. Along with renovating the bathroom, I had a new natural gas, tankless water heater installed. Oh, my! The water is now not only 140 degrees F, but it's literally on demand. The only electric used it for the igniter, like on the gas stove. Turn on the hot water tap, and within about 15 seconds, endless hot water!
I'm just contractor, so what do I know, but from this limited view that gas pipe you showed at the end could probably do with some support, like a strap, bracket, hanger, or hook. It could be just the camera angle making that run of pipe seem really long. It depends on local code, so consult a local gas expert or your local planning department. It's something you can do yourself very easily.
Knowing how your furnace works is something important for self troubleshooting.
If you are where it snows you will most likely need a "professional" when they are unavailable because everyone needs them and the roads are difficult to travel.
You can usually figure out the problem and fix it or even by pass it temporarily yourself if you know what it is doing.
One heavy snow in the middle of the night I had to drag my ladder out and climb on the roof to clear the vent pipe so my furnace would run.
Thankfully it wasn't icy, just a lot of snow.
Some US houses have boilers... and they're fairly small if they're new. But hot air is definitely more common.
Lawrence, the thing on the side of the furnace that looks like a thermostat I would guess is a control for an automatic humidifier, which is nice to have in the cold months to keep things from being so dry. There's a discrepancy simply because it's turned down so it doesn't run. Provided there's not a water valve you need to turn on somewhere, you might be able to turn that up to say, 40%-45% and get rid of a bit of that winter dryness. :)
EDIT: source: There's a rather old version of one of those in my house, unfortunately broken.
That's way too high. Set it at no more than 35% or else you will be getting a lot of condensation on your windows.
An automatic humidifier? Well that's something I've never seen in Florida, unless you count the actual weather.
Why in the world is the humistat in a closed basement room?
@@Primalxbeast Lol yeah well Florida is humid year round so no need for such.
@@Allan_son It's measuring the air going into the unit and if you noticed it wasn't closed off. No house is perfectly sealed and air tight or you'd die of asphyxiation
Northeast US here. If it heats water to heat your home we call it a boiler.. if it’s heating/pushing air we call it a furnace.
I have that same Trane furnace in my house. You'll pretty much never have to service it outside of filter changes. Thing is built to last.
Also we call them furnaces because some older or larger houses still run true boilers, that use steam to heat the building.
Older buildings in the US, (and here I'm talking about home that were built from the late 1800's to the early 1950's) were often built with coal furnaces which gave way to oil burning boilers for steam radiators. Many homes in the older parts of North Eastern American cities *still* have steam heat. I work at a church that was built in 1952 and I'd swear it's still running the original boiler!
Coned in NYC runs a giant steam heating system which several buildings are connected to.