Belyea Bros Limited

First off, we purchased a fine HTP furnace from Belyea about 4+ years ago - it wasn't cheap (12k+) and the installation was absolutely wonderful. The furnace itself works very well - but - after the first year, it threw an error - which is explained well in the manual - Flame Loss. While we can press the RESET button and restart the furnace, when it starts happening almost every 2 hours, I think there's a problem. We called for service. A technician arrived, seemingly solved the issue - but it comes back sporadically - time and time again. As long as it doesn't become repetitive, we RESET, and this usually seems to resolve the problem for weeks on end. The furnace never has any problem recovering this way, igniting normally each and every time.

This winter however, the problem has returned - requiring us to RESET in many cases, every 2-4 hours - so we again called for service. It's a pandemic, and we weren't freezing (as we could RESET) - so when the technician arrived (3 days), with a trainee in tow, we felt sure that we'd get the usual fine service. We did not.

His perfunctory 'diagnosis' (which took him about 3 minutes) was that the flame sensor was the issue, and without turning off the gas (although he did power down the furnace), he removed the sensor, cleaned it, restarted the furnace, monitored the flame strength for a few minutes - and declared it fixed. He then invoiced me $135 for diagnosis - and another $64 for cleaning the sensor. Total time on site was less than 40 minutes.

Less than 2 hours later - the error returned.

Needless to say - the suggested diagnostic procedure for this error, in the manual, is a bit more comprehensive, and following information in that, I monitored the flame strength (which was stable around 7 while firing). I called the company back to indicate that the problem was still present.

My next response was a quotation - by email - for over $800 - for the replacement of both the flame sensor and the ignitor. Do I sound a little miffed ?