I have seen the first two in your video on very old Unit Heaters. It would be interesting to see a history of who's company started the first "Safety Valves" and those that were so good became a safety standard. I have seen some crazy "shut off" stuff through the years. The early Coleman Floor furnaces had some crazy safety valves. They seemed to work though. Great Subject!
I have a 1940-50 Bryant winter AC, which is a forced air furnace. It works fine, not much rusty. I replaced wires to fan motor in summer. Replaced 24v VAC to 12 DC because the shading ring at solenoid was missing, which makes loud noise with VAC. Also I replaced the diaphragm in the solenoid valve last December. It had trouble to fire up last week. So I went through the wires at solenoid valve. The control side has nothing to do with the thermopile. The thermopile had been missing for many years, even before I bought the house. It has standing pilot. Always on 24/7. There are two pipes to pilot assembly. There are 4 wire contacts. Two for thermopile, the other three contacts go to pilot and other place. Not sure what they do. Seems they are in the loop of controlling valve solenoid, which is only controlled by thermostat and fan limit switch. I am going to add two flame roll out switch. Eventually I will change the chain to combination valve. May I have the model number of the combination valve in the video, please? Your video series of vintage furnace are very helpful. Thank you so much.
My 1961 gas valve has no BUTTON to hold while lighting the pilot. However, the boiler does have two(2) sources of gas AT THE THERMOPILE. One is the pilot, naturally and the other is a SOURCE of heat to HEAT the thermopile.
@@grayfurnaceman The second source of gas at the thermopile is used TO HEAT the thermopile. Naturally, once heated the regular pilot light will stay on.
How about the old gas valves that had a manual bypass? Those were scary. Old company I worked at a tech re lit the pilot after a maintenance and unknowingly put the gas valve on manual so the boiler was on run away. House got up to 95 degrees before they called us out. Scary stuff.
I rely on my propane fireplace for heat should I lose power during the winter. Thermocouple or other parts fail every 3-5 years, takes months to get repaired. How can I learn to do some of the basic, but emergency repairs?
@@grayfurnacemanthe second might bleeding pipe. Which is off when valve is off. It’s on only valve is energized based on what I observed. Seems my pilot control system is not working. The gas is running even flame is out. Even the thermopile has been missing for many years. Because I could find any broken piece underneath.
Crazy. I had to work on a dinosaur from the late 60s and i literally couldn't figure out how to shut off the pilot without breaking those fragile brass gas vavles to clean the thermocouple. I ended up just servicing the blower and doing what i can.
The valves are generally taper fit units. They used a specific valve grease which required disassembly of the valve with cleaning and reapplying grease. The best choice is to replace the entire flame safety system. GFM
I have seen the first two in your video on very old Unit Heaters. It would be interesting to see a history of who's company started the first "Safety Valves" and those that were so good became a safety standard. I have seen some crazy "shut off" stuff through the years. The early Coleman Floor furnaces had some crazy safety valves. They seemed to work though. Great Subject!
I will look into it.
GFM
I have a 1940-50 Bryant winter AC, which is a forced air furnace. It works fine, not much rusty. I replaced wires to fan motor in summer. Replaced 24v VAC to 12 DC because the shading ring at solenoid was missing, which makes loud noise with VAC. Also I replaced the diaphragm in the solenoid valve last December. It had trouble to fire up last week. So I went through the wires at solenoid valve. The control side has nothing to do with the thermopile. The thermopile had been missing for many years, even before I bought the house. It has standing pilot. Always on 24/7. There are two pipes to pilot assembly. There are 4 wire contacts. Two for thermopile, the other three contacts go to pilot and other place. Not sure what they do. Seems they are in the loop of controlling valve solenoid, which is only controlled by thermostat and fan limit switch. I am going to add two flame roll out switch. Eventually I will change the chain to combination valve. May I have the model number of the combination valve in the video, please? Your video series of vintage furnace are very helpful. Thank you so much.
My 1961 gas valve has no BUTTON to hold while lighting the pilot.
However, the boiler does have two(2) sources of gas AT THE THERMOPILE. One is the pilot, naturally and the other is a SOURCE
of heat to HEAT the thermopile.
It could be a non 100% shutdown system. Very dangerous.
GFM
@@grayfurnaceman The second source of gas at the thermopile is used TO HEAT the thermopile. Naturally, once heated the regular pilot light will stay on.
How about the old gas valves that had a manual bypass? Those were scary. Old company I worked at a tech re lit the pilot after a maintenance and unknowingly put the gas valve on manual so the boiler was on run away. House got up to 95 degrees before they called us out. Scary stuff.
These systems were scary. The control should be replaced with a proper flame safety control.
GFM
I rely on my propane fireplace for heat should I lose power during the winter. Thermocouple or other parts fail every 3-5 years, takes months to get repaired. How can I learn to do some of the basic, but emergency repairs?
I have over 1200 videos. Start with the gas furnace playlist.
GFM
So the second one you showed, if the pilot went out it would keep venting gas?
It would. It is a non 100% shutdown system. The pilot would continue to receive gas. Main gas will be shut down.
GFM
@@grayfurnacemanthe second might bleeding pipe. Which is off when valve is off. It’s on only valve is energized based on what I observed. Seems my pilot control system is not working. The gas is running even flame is out. Even the thermopile has been missing for many years. Because I could find any broken piece underneath.
Crazy. I had to work on a dinosaur from the late 60s and i literally couldn't figure out how to shut off the pilot without breaking those fragile brass gas vavles to clean the thermocouple. I ended up just servicing the blower and doing what i can.
The valves are generally taper fit units. They used a specific valve grease which required disassembly of the valve with cleaning and reapplying grease. The best choice is to replace the entire flame safety system.
GFM
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