Very informative! Reminds me of John Ellis! He came to my home and gave me a report with his findings about a year and a half ago. He was a very nice guy and came to do this out of the goodness of his heart. Never forget it! Thanks!
HCHO 0.101 mg/m3
Formaldehyde concentrations @ 0.101 mg/m3 is not alarming. I get outdoor threshold.
Formaldehyde can enter indoor air in two ways: 1: off-gassing 2: combustion (burning materials).
TVOC concentrations are is OK A 0.282 mg/m3.
CO2 @ 0.667 PPM is not high.
average outdoor air level. 400–1,000 ppm.
29% RH is Low RH reading @ 24C or 75.2F.
What is alarming you? Formaldehyde?
Sources of formaldehyde in the home include building materials, smoking, household products, and the use of un-vented, fuel-burning appliances, like gas stoves or kerosene space heaters .
Have you had your furnace and the flue examined for functionality?
Inexpensive Air Quality Monitors are subject to questionable readings.
Just my 2 cents.
Water heater flue termination.
Distance to a mechanical [systems] air supply inlet; 3 feet above if within 10 feet horizontally-US.
6 feet (1.83m) / 3 feet (91 cm) above if within 10 feet (3m) horizontally-Canadian.
1: Test the draw on your appliance flue exhaust. Light am Smoke pencil a stick of incense. Wait for smoke to stream evenly. Hold it near the flue. The smoke should be picked up and wicked up and away into the flue. If not, the flue might be improperly sized, poorly installed or partly obstructed.
Recommend: Retain a licensed HVAC contractor that specializes in signs of back drafting.
More subtle causes of backdrafts, home’s sealed too tight.
I had the notion these were high numbers as that air monitor kept sounding a loud alarm. Suppose i shouldn’t trust these monitors? Do you have a prefrence of which one’s work best, if you have had experience with any? I’m open to options to try this again. Thank you.
Yes, I’m aware of what is code and not code. The water heater exhaust was obviously installed by that program. The furnace exhaust was installed before we moved in. Although that company is still around and I’ve thought about contacting them to fix this issue that is violating building codes.
I have had numerous HVAC technicians come here and tell me nothing is wrong, yet my furnace tells a different story. The exhaust pipe was just replaced this past fall, there were not any obstructions. I still believe my house is too “tight”. Its the only thing that makes sense.
Also rather certain my furnace has some problems, it takes forever to fire and makes quite a bang noise when it finally does. Photo shows quite the smoggy mess in there. Two year old furnace. The burners aren’t lighting maybe and fumes are creating the loud sound perhaps? We do keep the ERV running, as well as the furnace fan. Mistake or no? Maybe too much air flow? My significant other mentioned recently that the fan turns off temporarily when the heat comes on. Normal? Not normal? Sounds a bit strange to me.
The smoke just lingers, without being drawn towards the flue as it goes up and out.
The ERV does help with this negative air pressure some. I’ve noticed upon opening the door to the outside that the back bedroom door doesn’t shake like it used to with it being closed. Opening the front door to the outside makes my long patio blinds move a bit though, which are in the adjoining room.
Something is amiss with this furnace. Perhaps all of the substances in the air have caused it to become such a mess. Check out these ducts. The latest HVAC technician tried to tell me this was simply, “silicone”.
An IAQ, Indoor Air Quality, device is only as good as the manufacturer intended. Expect to pay well over 1-2K for a reasonable AQ device.
VOC detection. Volatile Organic Compounds,
*Understand the numbers.
Understand how to adjust sensitivity alarms on the device, if any.
Backdrafting. You require a professional.
Flue for what appliance?
How many flues do you have in total?
It’s not a mystery, it’s not testing for the right thing. I don’t care about CFM I want to know pressure. As I stated it is about natural or mechanical pressure sources and that natural stack effect is the most unlikely consideration. But like everything else you have to eliminate everything to find the source.
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If those two things are back drafting, they are not the problem, so let’s quit talking about things connect to this.
Get the blower door guy back there and test the house pressures. Tell me what they are in pascal.
Which mechanical device causes the most negative pressure in the house.
Next, turn everything on in the house that uses air. Put up the blower door and pump air into the house till the negative pressure is 0 pa. The CFM required to accomplish this will be determined. Is the sum of all appliances draft equal to this cfm? Use an anemometer and directly measure their draft. Don’t go by manuals or CFM/Btu calculations, as the house pressure will alter this.
How big the accumulative holes in the house to let this air out should be calculated. This will let you know how big a hole/holes you are looking for. But there should not be any big hole if your house is as tight as you think it is. If you don’t have a big hole, you need big pressure to accomplish that volume of air.
This solution is so simple. Do the math. Measure the right things and forget about all those other issues you are trying to figure out. They are the result of the pressure problem we are looking for.
Air out = Air in. If not, it causes a negative pressure. Air in = Air out causes a positive house pressure, so we don’t have to concern ourselves with that.
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I concur but, I think he mentioned there smoke from smoke pencil was static. “The smoke just lingers, without being drawn towards the flue as it goes up and out.”
That is not back drafting. The smoke lingers and was not drawn into the flue. To me there is no or inadequate combustion air.
Thoughts?
Testing Draft.
- Turn down the heat at the furnace or boiler if there is a shared vent.
- Close all windows and doors.
- Close any fireplace dampers, if present.
- Turn on any kitchen and bathroom exhaust fans.
- Turn on the clothes dryer.
- Run hot water at a bathtub or laundry sink long enough to get the water heater to turn on.
As I said, they are not the problem.
Are they both not induced draft appliances? Another reason they are not the problem.
Likely hearing a delayed ignition . Too much gas builds up in the combustion chamber and the ignition is delayed, your furnace experiences a small gas explosion. This can be caused by low gas pressure, clogged burners, and dirty equipment.
Please post the furnace model and serial numbers.
Hello,
Photo of furnace numbers as requested. Please advise on your thoughts!
Thank you again,
Michelle Castile
608-415-7068
Hello,
We did this exact test upon testing with the “toilet paper method” for the furnace exhaust. It sucked the paper right up. I have this on video, but unfortunately it won’t upload.
Thank you,
Michelle Castile
608-415-7068
Hello,
I’ve been trying to obtain another individual to do another blower door testing as I’m unable to reach the gentleman ehondud this previously, and at no charge. We spent a lot of funds trying to obtain the correct individuals to diagnose this. As you can see even after two years there are many questions still unanswered that we have. I hired many different HVAC technicians and professionals to come to my home, some of which took advantage of my desperation and my checkbook. One individual even told me he was testing for substances and turned out to be only testing for mold that cost me $400.00. A lot of funds quickly went away faster than we had time to replenish. Therefore I’m trying to obtain someone to do this which doesn’t cost me more than I can afford, which is not much. After I searched for resources to do this all I could find was the program who started this whole situation in the first place. I’m not willing to do that after all they have put me through, denying me other programs I qualified for due to their employees being the ones who oversee the applications I submitted for numerous things. I was denied a block grant after I had obtained it and was just getting ready to pick the contractors to fix these issues. It was advised a block grant and weatherization funds would be “duplicate funding” even though the weatherization program caused these damages to occur all throughout my home. Which of course they knew me well and still labeled it to be duplicate funding. I’ve spent over a year trying to obtain legal help, coming up unsuccessful every single time. Very frustrating and devastating, I’ve been ready to give up many times and find myself to be grabbing at straws these days, I’ve already done everything there is to do, filed complaints, spoken to hundreds of agencies and organizations. No one can help because no one knows what to do with this situation.
If anyone knows the gentleman’s name from that YouTube video link that was posted, please pass it along as he appears to be in Wisconsin and not far from me hopefully. I’d love to have him diagnose this and give me the answers I’m needing in order to put that peice of this to rest and start to move on with my life.
Thank you,
Michelle Castile
608-415-7068
Hello,
Just one flue I believe regarding the furnace.
Michelle Castile
608-415-7068
Hello,
Yes but the problem is where is that professional who can diagnose this because I surely cannot find who that would be in my jurisdiction. Either I get made out to be some crazy female and not believed, or no one can figure this out and they leave scratching their heads. These things have happened many times. Too many times.
Michelle Castile
608-415-7068
You don’t need another blower door test you need somebody with that equipment to use it beyond what it is normally used for. Your story story is what I hear constantly! Some are up to a half a million dollars on commercial buildings. You’re not alone. Keep trying to do this on the local and cheap fix and you’ll never get anywhere. You’ve already been there and done that.
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