Inside the cabinet of your gas-powered furnace is a group a metal, clamshell-shaped objects called heat exchangers. Although unimpressive looking to untrained eyes, heat exchangers perform a vital part of the cycle of bringing you warm air from your furnace. These chambers are where hot combustion gasses go after the burners produce them. The gasses transfers heat to the walls of the exchangers. Venting pipes remove the cooled exhaust from the gas, while fans funnel air through and around the exchanger to receive the heat from its walls. Without a heat exchanger, the heat from the gas jets wouldn’t get into the air, and you’d feel nothing more than room temperature air wafting from your vents.
But problems with a heat exchanger are more troublesome than a loss of warmth. We’ll explain in this post why you need to have cracked heat exchangers replaced immediately. Contact Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning, any time of the day or night, if you think you have a cracked heat exchanger and need furnace repair in Chicago, IL.
The hazards of cracks in a heat exchanger
Extensive age in a furnace or lack of maintenance can cause cracks along the heat exchangers from rust and corrosion. If someone removed a heat exchanger from a furnace and showed you where a crack has developed, you might wonder what the big deal is: these cracks look miniscule. However, inside the furnace the heat exchanger expands as it absorbs heat, and this stretches open these cracks wide.
The danger from these gaps is that they can allow the escape of exhaust gas from the furnace into the household. This means dangerous carbon monoxide getting into your living spaces. Even a small amount of this colorless, odorless toxic gas can cause severe headaches and nausea.
The American Gas Association puts it simple: “Any visible crack or hole is reason for requiring replacement of the heat exchanger or furnace.”
A warning sign of a cracked heat exchanger is a clicking sound coming from the inside of the furnace cabinet. If you hear clicking that you can’t account for from loose bolts or broken bits of machinery, shut off the gas to the furnace and call expert help immediately.
Get Shavitz to your side!
Although Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning hasn’t been around as long as the furnace, we can guarantee you’ll have a harder time find an HVAC company that’s been around longer than us: we’ve served Chicagoland’s heating needs since 1904. We know how to keep you safe when you need furnace repair in Chicago, IL, so give us a call immediately if you think you’ve got worries from a cracked heat exchanger.