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Old 12-06-2019, 07:04 AM   #1
rnelan
Established Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2019
Location: Waldorf
Posts: 12
M.O.C. #25153
2020 HC385BR Furnace problem (resolved)

So, this drives me up the wall.. As much as we spend on these units to have something like this happen, the CW failure to support and the 3 nights we went without heat in a ~30s environment.. Just makes me frustrated and a touch angry.

Tuesday night, we woke up in the middle of the night with no heat and it was cold ~40s inside the HC Monte. After breaking out blankets and turning off the thermostat for the rest of the night, we started troubleshooting in the morning.

First, the indicator light on the furnace control board indicated a sail switch failure. then, it was a high limit failure, then a board failure.. Sometimes the furnace would kick on, fire then shut down unexpectedly about 40 seconds into the cycle.. It would pause for 3 minutes then do the same cycle again.

We called McGregor CW in Richmond, VA to talk about service. As it is 100 miles away and the unit has been skirted for the winter -and- this was a minor problem to solve at the time, we expected that they would want to send a service truck instead of sending a driver to pickup the unit and drag it to Richmond. Well, they said no. They wanted us to bring it to them and live in it down there and commute to DC every day. Grr.. Needless, costly and just dumb.

We instead decided to bear the cost and order parts from CW's competitor. We ordered a new board and high limit switch. The sail switch seemed ok since the furnace was indeed firing. After receiving those yesterday, we installed them and found that we had the exact same problems.. but now, we had an added 5 blink, 10 blink, chattering noises coming from the relay on the board. Thinking that possibly the flame detection wasnt working, we pulled the igniter/propane assembly and inspected for corrosion/soot.. None, clean as can be.. So, we put it all back together and hit the reset switch for the 50th time.. Can you believe that the furnace worked as expected?? .... Until 12am.. CRAP!

I got out of bed when I heard the blower motor start and stop and start and stop, sometimes only for a few seconds.. What the hell bobby? Now this is starting to sound like a thermostat sending heat required signals intermittently.. we werent even getting 15 seconds of pre fan.. so, I pop the front cover of the thermostat and look.. nothing wrong in there.. no smell, nothing.. Thinking that the manual reset of the thermostat wasnt working I started to pull the three wires off from inside to strip them and reseat them in the lug.. Guess what!!!? The red wire (+12vdc) was broken and was just "leaning" up against the lug.. like making contact, but not securely seated at all in the lug. Eff me!! So, as I am stripping and seating all three wires, I start to hear this clicking sound from down the hall.. From the fuse box near the stairs. I open the fuse box and now the "Self-healing" fuse is going crazy.. set, reset, set, reset ... and on and on.. with the red fault light blinking like it was installed on the wrong xmas tree.

OK, so I pull the 15a "self-healing" fuse and replace it with another ordinary 15a fuse.. Guess what?? 3 days of misery, money and failed customer service comes to a halt.. We had heat and proper operation for the rest of the night.

FWIW, I understand that nothing is perfectly constructed. My choice not to go to Richmond was my own.. I made a choice not to waste time and resources and just do the work on my own.. But seriously... CW should have stood by their product.. I only took delivery of this thing a month ago. Also, Dometic.. Bad on you!!! They shipped a manual with the unit that was written in 2017. The furnace was a 2019 with replacement part numbers that werent reflected in the 2017 manual.. Would it have killed you to update the book that was written 2 years earlier? And lastly.. Keystone.. What kind of QA are you doing? The thermostat made it through delivery inspection, but not long after.. Just long enough for the self-healing fuse to revolt.. If it wasnt for the noise down the hallway, I would still be troubleshooting on night 4..

Seriously, these are not $15k investments people.. Show some respect and at least try to help.. I get that you are in a business and do so to make money.. but one factor is repeat business.. I really am on the fence on whether to buy another Monte from Keystone and their dealer CW..

Disappointing.
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