Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Get help with Wall & Floor Furnaces
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
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Call (325) 219-0005Servicing and replacing the vented gas wall and floor furnaces found in many older houses, including their burners, pilots, venting and the clear space they need around them.
01Wall and floor heaters
These heaters are simple, and the signs they give usually point clearly at the burner, the vent or the space around them.
Many wall and floor furnaces rely on a standing pilot and a thermocouple that holds the gas valve open. A worn thermocouple, a dirty pilot or a failing gas valve stops the heater, and a technician checks the burner and venting while diagnosing it.
Dark streaks above a wall heater suggest the fuel is not burning cleanly or combustion gases are escaping into the room instead of up the vent. That can mean carbon monoxide, so the heater needs checking before it is used again.
Dust and lint collect on the heater and, with a floor furnace, things fall through the grate onto hot surfaces below. A brief smell at the start of the season is common, and a strong or lasting one means something is burning that should not be.
A wall or floor furnace warms the space around it, and heat reaches other rooms only by drifting through open doorways. Distant rooms running cooler is how these heaters behave, though a heater putting out less than it used to may need its burner or fan checked.
A floor furnace sends heat straight up through its grate, so the metal gets hot enough to burn skin. That is how the heater is built rather than a fault, and it is why the grate has to stay clear of rugs, furniture, bare feet and pets.
02Repair or replace
An older wall or floor furnace can be kept going, replaced like for like, or replaced with a different kind of heat.
Sensible when the cabinet and burner are sound, the vent is intact and parts are still available. A thermocouple, gas valve, fan motor or wall thermostat can often be replaced on its own, returning the heater to reliable service.
The usual step when the firebox has rusted through, parts are no longer made, or the old venting is failing. Many newer wall furnaces are direct-vent models that draw combustion air from outside and vent straight through the wall, which keeps combustion sealed off from the room.
Where the heater leaves much of the building cold, or a floor furnace sits in a busy walkway, a ductless heat pump or a central system may serve the space better. It is a bigger project, weighed against how the building is used and what space there is for equipment.
Wall & Floor Furnaces
Serving Abilene, TX.
03How they differ
A wall or floor furnace does the job of a central furnace in a much smaller, more exposed package.
Without ducts, the hot surfaces of the heater are right in the living space: a wall panel at hand height or a grate underfoot. That is why the clear space around them matters so much, and why curtains, furniture and stored belongings pushed close over the years are a real fire risk. The heater's label states the clearances its maker requires.
Most older models vent through a pipe inside the wall to the roof, and rely on that pipe drawing well to carry combustion gases away. A vent that has come apart, rusted or been blocked lets those gases spill into the room. Checking the vent and the burner flame is part of every visit, because they are what keep the heater safe to live beside.
04In the meantime
None of this repairs the heater. All of it keeps a heater that lives in the room from becoming a hazard.
Leave the building straight away without switching lights, appliances or the thermostat on or off, and without lighting any flame. Call the gas utility or 911 from outside, away from the building.
Get everyone, pets included, out into fresh air and call 911. Stay outside until emergency responders say it is safe to go back in.
Keep furniture, curtains, rugs and anything that can burn away from the heater and its grate, and keep children and pets off a floor grate while it is running or cooling down.
05Questions
Many are, as long as the burner lights cleanly, the vent carries combustion gases outside and the space in front of it is kept clear. Soot marks, a carbon monoxide alarm, rust through the cabinet or a flame that looks ragged change the answer, and a check before each heating season catches most of these.
The burner sits directly below it, and the heat rises straight through the grate into the room with no ducts in between. The grate is supposed to get hot, which is why children, pets, rugs and furniture need to stay off it.
Usually only part of it. These heaters are sized for the area around them, and heat spreads to other rooms through open doorways. An open floor plan helps, a model with a built-in fan pushes heat further, and closed-off bedrooms tend to stay cool.
A smell of gas, a carbon monoxide alarm, a burning electrical smell, or no heat or cooling in dangerous weather: urgent. A system that runs longer than it used to, a new noise or one room that is off: worth a visit soon, but not tonight.
Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
Prefer to talk?
Call (325) 219-0005