Hi All,
I am new to this forum and would really appreciate the expert advice of anyone on here. Being a consumer in Toronto who has a furnace and any other HVAC equipment while looking for simple support or advice is extremely difficult. It often feels like there are so many obstacles in trying to help ourselves without laying out tons of money in order to get any support. Let me explain. I apologize for the length of this message but for full clarity I need to get it down here.
A few weeks back I smelt gas in the furnace room. Had Enbridge come to assess. He shows up, runs a test on the outside gas meter. Sees a pressure issue and then proceeds to check the main two appliances, The Water heater and then the Furnace. Water tank is 15 years old, the furnace is close to 4 years old. Shuts the gas to furnace, does pressure test outside and still an issue. Then shuts the water heater gas supply and tests show no pressure issue. Hence the water heater is the "problem" and he tags it. He also tags the furnace as I left the panel off while I was troubleshooting. We replaced the water heater as it's a rental but now I needed the furnace to come back online. I don't think there is enough space in this message window to describe how hard this was to get done. Enercare does the yearly maintenance but did not know how to resolve this request. I finally requested a service call for someone to come out, first time the tech cancelled the request after speaking to me but the second tech said she'd come to have look. The assumption was it was a $99 cost to just come out which I had to accept. She was great! Came out, checked the furnace for monoxide etc, and closed it back up and went on her way. Ethically refused to charge me as nothing needed to be done really. Fast forward two weeks and I still smell gas in the room. Took the cover off, bought a neotek hand tester to try empower myself. This is the product I bought.Neotek (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BZKQ1MQG?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1)
The scenarios is like this: I shut power off to the furnace but leave the gas line running. Use the sniffer near each orifice on the manifold and it registers a leak. Each one of the four orifices shows a level, worst being the one closest to the gas valve assembly inside the furnace. I leave the furnace off for hours yet still sniffs a leak. We have a 10 year parts and labor warranty via Home Depot. Where things get annoying is that even though we are warrantied any licensed HVAC company will charge us around $200 just to come in and assess. I also seem to be stuck with using the original installer. I called them and spoke to the head technician. Unfortunately was a little difficult to understand him but what he was telling me is the Trane S9X2 will have some gas floating in the chamber as normal and I must leave the power on. I hence put the cover back on, set the unit back up as normal and ran a heat cycle. Here is where I am concerned. I sniffed the flu coming out of the furnace, (Its the flu that is short and exits in the furnace room. The other flu goes outside. This sniff test registered high levels of gas even for some time after I turned the heat off again. I left the main fan blower running for a few hours and the sniff test in the flu was registering no gas. Ofcourse thats a silly test as the blower would help disperse the small levels of gas. So I turned the fan off, left the power on and now I test a low level of gas out of the same flu. This has been tested many hours after the blower has been off, Still tested gas and I smell gas if I put nose close the flu. Now that I have explained my scenario. Here are my thoughts. The installer wants $200 just to come out and assess is this reasonable, should I be detecting gas at all? Is this a micro gas valve leak. Is this normal for a Trane S9X2? It seems the system is designed to overcomplicate things by making it expensive to troubleshoot even with a full warranty and there is very little comfort in trying to clarify if this behaviour is normal. So please, anyone who is experienced on this topic please advise. All I am seeing is there should be zero gas sniffed unless the furnace is calling for heat.
It's possible your gas detector meter is detecting trace mercaptan.
Why did Enbridge issue a warning tag on the furnace, if the water heater was the problem? What Clause did they use? And who cleared the warning tag on the furnace?
Without a manometer to test the gas piping system, you could perform a dial test at the gas meter.
Make sure no gas appliances will run during this test. You may want to unplug the water heater. Any standing pilot appliances would need to be turned off so no gas is being used. Mark the 0.01m3 (metric gas meter) or 1/2ft2 (imperial gas meter) dial on the gas meter. The dial on the gas meter should not move past your mark. A hour long test should be sufficient.
If it does, there is a gas leak somewhere. I would then turn the furnace gas shut off (on the gas piping) to the off position, and repeat the dial test. If there is no longer a leak then it's likely gas is leaking past the furnace gas valve, out the orifices.