A rare phenom occurred over the weekend here in the swamp. It got cold as hell. I turned on granny’s Amana high efficiency furnace and all I heard was a gurgling sound. Not good. The same thang as last years fiasco. First time it gits cold the dang heater acts up. The draft inducer motor full of water, the furnace all rusted to hell, the electronics all wet. Dayum. So I removed the blower and dryed it out with a hair dryer. Dryed all the electronics and the furnace. I figured Mobile is the wettest city on the planet besides Seattle so I went up on the roof. Found no leaks, Hosed it down with a water hose while I had peeps up in the attic looking for where the water was coming from. Could not find one damn leak. So I got to looking at the ac drain. I poured some water down the drain and BOOM there it was. Stopped up ac drain. To make matters worse the leak was never seen because the water was going through the wood sub-flooring under the furnace. I had to blow out the tube going into the draft inducer and open it up, (full of mud), I had to take a tooth brush and clean the orifice on one of the burners, naturally it was the one with the flame sensor fartherest away from the gas valve. I didn’t have to clean the flame sensor itself which was amazing to me. I also replaced the screws on the blower with new stainless ones. Never know when I might need to remove it again and those rusted ones were hell to get out. So if you hear a gurgle in your heater shut er down and dry er out.
Right now it is about 80 degrees in here(73 outside) Grannys got it hot as 3 yards of you know where. So much for the cold weather. LOL

How does electric heat work? Having a basic understanding of what is happening greatly increases your ability to diagnose and repair these heaters. All of them basically work the same. Just as an air conditioner A-coil needs a certain amount of freon flowing through it, Air must be traveling over the heating coils at a certain rate or they will simply heat up and disentergrate in a very short time. But if the fan comes on straight away then only cold air will come out of the vent!. So how do they do it? The manufacturer installs a sequencer to bring on the heating coils in stages.

This does 2 things. Pre warms the heater and keeps the breaker from tripping. A heating coil is first brought on to heat up the furnace and then 30 seconds later another one comes on 30 seconds later the fan and another one kicks in. Each coil is approximitly 5000 watts the typical furnace for a 3 bedroom. These coils will break individually and instead of 15000 watts you have 10000 or even 5000. Many times people would bring the heat strip to me with all 3 coils broken. Can you imagine that? The good news is each coil can be restrung

and the heater can be brought back up to normal. When restringing any element you must have the coils evenly spaced and you cannot have any gaps or they become weak spots and burn out. You must take care not to let the coil touch the heater chamber also.

ODS (oxygen depletion system) gas safety pilot for space heaters and fireplaces. The most common problem with these is the pilot flame does not keep the safety thermocouple hot enough to hold the safety magnet open,thus shutting down the fire in just a short time.
I use a product called Rustbuster to squirt through the pilot burner into the ODS chamber(small chamber with flap just behind the pilot light) to remove tiny spider webs,dust,etc,that gets tangled up in the burner over the warmer months when the system is not in use.After making sure the ODS pilot chamber is cleared of these obstructions you move the control knob to the PILOT position press down on the knob and let the gas flow out of the pilot,,,snap down the red ignitor rapidly a dozen or more times till that flame light up. Hold down on that control knob till the tip of the safety thermocouple gets hot enough to generate electricity and hold the safety magnet in, allowing the pilot to stay lit. Next move the control knob to ON position. in about 20 seconds the flame should come on.
You will know the heater is working properly if the pilot flame is a long pretty blue color (2 inchs) The beauty of this system is when oxygen content of the home or room gets low, the chamber will lower the pilot flame and the safety will snap closed the main gas and no more fire.
When any dust or cobwebs get into it, it tends to quit after only a short while. That is why I flush the chamber from the pilot end with rust buster. Shop air will work, but rustbuster is best because it has a nice telescoping spout you can use to reach the pilot burner opening.You can get it at any hardware store for a cupla bucks. You never want to re-size the pilot hole to make the flame bigger, OOPS! Doing so will cause you to have to purchase an new ODS pilot burner assembly.
Notice the hole to clean arrows. You can use a straw to blow out the dust or shop air also. When the dust is removed the heater will work properly. I use Rustbuster.It has a telescoping spout and I shoot a little right into the pilot. I flush it out safely without messing with the flap on the pilot safety! Bend that flap out and you have screwed up the pilot big time!

It is getting colder now and some folks are turning on their heaters only to get no heat. The problem is the flame sensor most of the time:

They get contaminated and will not sense ignition. If the brain does not get a signal of ignition it will think raw gas is coming out and it will check 3 or 4 more times. Within 20 seconds it will shut down the gas valve. Replace this sensor or clean it real good with emory cloth or a brillo pad. Also take a look at all connections from the burner to the control. A loose or corroded wire will not get a signal back to headquarters that ignition has occurred and the dang thang will shut down.The control might be bad but make damn sure it ain’t something simple before you go blowing money on non refundable parts.LOL!