I had my furnace go out during a "peak furnace problem" season on a weekend in December. It was blowing cold air constantly, and showing "code 33" which basically means it detected flames or overheated, and went into a safety "cooldown" mode. I called a bunch of other heating places and no one could make it out to my place. A couple folks were generous over the phone and tried to help me deal with the code coming out of my furnace, but to no avail.
Only Tops was able to send someone out. I think I may have had a bit of luck: one of the managers/owners? (I think his name was Shaun?) answered. He said the other guys were all busy on calls, but that there was one person who could do it as his last call of the day... him. He was at my place a couple hours later, and identified the problem in rather short order: the furnace was overheating, and there were several likely culprits, some of which had cheaper fixes than others:
- The intake duct size (diameter) was narrower than typical for the large size furnace I have, which limits the inflow, increasing the odds of overheating. This is expensive to fix.
- Several of the heating (output) vents were closed, which increases build up of heat because the furnace can't get rid of the heat fast enough. We opened them. (Free to open them, but it does increase heating cost as unoccupied rooms are heated.)
- The ("never-needs-to-be-replaced") filter was almost completely blocked. He replaced it with a disposable/replaceable one, and charged me only a nominal fee for it. He mentioned that the "never needs to be replaced" filters tend to let fine particles through, which makes them popular recommendations among companies that also happen to do duct cleaning! :)
- The gas input was set to maximum. I learned a way to reduce this safely to reduce the amount of burn. (But be careful doing this yourself. If you reduce it too much, the flame will not ignite and you're in trouble.)
The service call, diagnostic, and filter was a bargain! The guy (Shaun) was so informative and helpful and told me if I needed anything at all or had any questions or concerns about any HVAC issues to just give them a call and they would be happy to assist in anyway they can. Thanks guys, so glad I stumbled across your business! read more