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Explosive Furnace Installation

nthammer, member

7 users recommend

Explosive Furnace Installation

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This is a home that was recently renovated that I was performing a home inspection on for a client. The contractor was on site and decided to turn the gas on at the meter while I was upstairs starting my inspection. He then came upstairs to try to test the gas he had turned on by lighting the gas stove. I then smelled gas in the living room and told him to shut it off! Then I went down to the furnace and the picture is what I found.

Gas had completely filled the duct system by the time he shut off the gas. Had I not stopped him I assume he would have lit the stove and caused the house to explode!

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The Devil Is in the Details

Comments (11)

JanieGraham writes: I can't believe that! There is no way I would touch my furnace and then light it. So good that his house didn't explode! Nice catch.
Posted: 11:01 am on October 20th

AlexRetlaw writes: So, we now have a new use for air conditioning condensate drain pans. They can also be used as a natural gas manifold to evenly (or unevenly) distribute natural gas within the supply duct system. The carefully estimated delayed ignition (explosion) time is from nanoseconds to an infinite (sideways figure eight) number of seconds.

BTW . . . Is that bare white NMB (Romex) cable I see connected to the furnace (lower left in the photo)?

The construction industry motto continues to be as follows: "Never do it right the first time."
Posted: 9:35 am on November 1st

RoverBuild writes: Just an FYI. Those units are available, via the web, as kits for homeowners to install themselves. I cant imagine any sort of plumber or heating specealist doing this. I can imagine a homeowner.
Posted: 9:09 pm on October 24th

Alaska_Wolves writes: Call me a cynic but his looks staged to me.
Posted: 9:51 pm on October 20th

mikeymo writes: Wow. I wonder if the system shouldn't be designed so this connection would be impossible to make, the way you can't fit a diesel gas pump nozzle into an unleaded gas tank... Murphy's law, if there's a wrong way to do it, it's only a matter of time.
Posted: 2:53 pm on October 18th

schilkemania writes: I shudder to think how much gas would be released from a wide open 3/4" pipe in just 30 seconds. This was either a staged photo or truly a disaster in the making.
Posted: 12:04 pm on October 18th

schilkemania writes: Mikeymo, the white pvc pipe exiting the cased evaporator coil above the furnace is a drain to remove condensate from the air conditioning sytem (water taken from the house's air as it is cooled), the hole the gas line is connected to should be an auxillary drain for when the main drain clogs, etc. The gas pipe should be connected to the gas valve inside the furnace. Whoever installed this had no idea of how the furnace or A/C system works and should not be allowed near any gas piping again, paid or not.
Posted: 12:02 pm on October 18th

mikeymo writes: I can't tell what I'm looking at in the picture- can someone please explain?
Posted: 11:09 am on October 18th

hllywd writes: Drain line is in the right place, but nobody could be that stupid for the gas line... could they?
Posted: 8:58 am on October 18th

Bcramer writes: Negative, has to be the A-coil. This person should be bared from doing business. Even ran the condensate drain to the other refrigerant line.

Posted: 8:52 am on October 18th

Thaddeus Raven writes: That's not gas plumbed to the humidifier is it?
Posted: 8:11 am on October 18th

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