Gas Appliance or Gas Heater Flame & Noise Defects

How to Diagnose & Report Gas Appliance or Heater Flame & Noise Defects
- How to report defects found in oil or gas piping inspections
- Home inspection report language examples for gas heating appliance flame & noise problems & hazards
Questions & Answers about gas burner operating problems: flame defects, noises, safety hazards
References

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Gas burner operating defects & noises: here we provide descriptions and photographs of unsafe gas piping, indications of unsafe or improperly operating gas appliances, gas meters, and other gas installation defects are provided This document provides free sample draft home inspection report language for reporting defects in oil and gas piping at residential properties.Readers should also see Water Heater Noises.

Gas Flame & Noise Defects - How to Identify & Report Other Defects in LP or Natural Gas Appliances by Examining the Gas Burner Flame or Burner Noises

*** Safety Recommendation: gas grill we suggest keeping the gas turned off at the rubber hose connection below the rear deck as leaks could be very dangerous. The use of rubber tubing rather than iron piping is unsafe and may not be permitted for this installation, and we suggest you review this question with your local fire inspector. Usually this is not a significant expense if correction is needed. This item should be addressed promptly.

Gas Appliance Flame Observations:Caution: examining the burner when this appliance was operating we noted that the flame was floating above the burner ports. You should check with your utility company or heating appliance service person. Possible causes include high gas pressure, clogged flue, inadequate air supply, excessive or very cold drafts.

Gas Appliance Flame Observations: [Example heating system inspection report topics] Caution At the ___ appliance, the gas burner flame was
... yellow and lazy [inadequate gas pressure or inadequate combustion air],
... unusually high [possibly excessive gas pressure],
... making a popping noise when turned off and on,
... burning at the orfice,
... spilling out of the burner area,
indicating a possible malfunction of this equipment.
Any of these conditions is potentially very dangerous and needs prompt attention. You should have your utility company or service person check the appliance immediately.

Immediate LP or natural gas safety hazards: if there is evidence of an LP or natural gas leak at a building, gas odors, for example, you should:

Do not do anything that is likely to cause a gas explosion, such as lighting a match, operating an electrical switch, or even using a telephone in the building
Leave the building immediately
Notify other building occupants of the safety concern
Contact the local gas company and/or fire department

Watch out: General safety warning: improper installation and even improper inspection and testing methods involving natural or "LP" gas can involve dangerous conditions and risk fire or explosion. If you smell gas you should leave the building immediately and should do so without doing anything that could create a spark such as operating a light switch or telephone. From a safe location, call your gas company's emergency line and/or your fire department.

Watch out: soot obseved on or around an LP or or natural gas burner can be a sign of extreme danger. Normally gas fired appliances run rather clean and with no soot depositon. But if there is a combustion air problem a system can soot up and even completely clog a flue with soot very quickly - in minutes or hours. The risk is potentiallyi fatal carbon monoxide poisoning of building occupants.

The text provided here is a working draft and may be incomplete or inaccurate. Contact us to suggest text changes and additions and, if you wish, to receive online listing and credit for that contribution. NOTICE: while example report language is provided here, reproduction of this or any of our web pages or their contents at other websites or in printed documents for sale is prohibited.

What should a gas furnace or boiler gas burner flame look like?

When properly adjusted the gas burner for a 100,000 BTU gas furnace or gas boiler, will have a flame about 1" or so high. The top of the gas flame will roll slightly 90 deg across and be blue in color.

If the gas pressure is too high you will notice the tips of the flame much higher, pointed and orange in color. The orange gas flame color usually means there is too much gas for the air mix input. [Dust, debris, or other problems in the gas/air mix ratio, such as a mis-adjusted or blocked air intake at a gas burner will also change the flame color and pattern.] Thanks to Charles or Mike Trumbature for suggesting this comment.

Details about gas flame color and diagnostic suggestions are at FLAME COLOR, BLUE vs YELLOW COMBUSTION.

What does the presence of rust or debris mean when found on a gas burner?

Excessive rusting every year usually accompanies these problems of improper gas pressure, inadequate combustion air, or wet conditions. If you vacuum a lot of rust one year and it is back the next, then there is a problem that needs to be diagnosed and corrected. (Rust can damage a heat exchanger, cause a hole, and make the heater unsafe. Rust can also indicate general moisture conditions that could be causing other damage to or safety problems with the heater, including flue or chimney safety hazards.

Looking for rust on a gas heater's burner is a simple, quick visual check anyone can do to see if there is cause for alarm. If rust is recurrent as we describe, further inspection is needed, and the gas pressure regulator should be checked as well. Some of the residential gas furnaces or gas fired boilers show the correct flame patterns in their Installation and Operation Manuals.

Thanks to Charles or Mike Trumbature for suggesting this comment: I see mostly Rheem furnaces in homes 20 - 30 years old. Rheem(TM) must have cornered the market at that time here in the Houston Texas area. I've seen several homes in various areas with the same identical furnaces. I replaced a thermocouple on a relatively new unit once and noticed the "tame" flame pattern compared to my raging bonfire in my own furnace which was an older unit. On my older gas furnace I was constantly cleaning out rust every year. That's when I checked the gas pressure at the gas regulator/valve and found it too high. My friend's heat exchanger still looked new, mine was a bucket of rust.

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Technical Reviewers & References

Related Topics, found near the top of this page suggest articles closely related to this one.

U.S. Energy Information Administration - eia.doe.gov/
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - epa.gov/solar/energy-and-you/affect/natural-gas.html
At Natural Gas.Org www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp#emission you’ll find a table of combustion products
At geocities.com/rainforest/6847/report1.html is an interesting and detailed though not “neutral” report on the components and contaminants in the combustion of natural gas. You’ll see a long long list of emissions products, but look again – most of the contaminant levels listed are in the picograms.
apvgn.pt/documentacao/iangv_rep_part1.pdf lists the components in natural gas exhaust from vehicles
The Need Project, Manassas, VA: need.org/needpdf/infobook_activities/SecInfo/NGasS.pdf
Kroschwitz, Jacqueline I., and Mary Howe-Grant (eds.). "Gas, Natural." In Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology. 4th ed., vol. 12. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1993.
Tussing, Arlon R., & Bob Tippee. The Natural Gas Industry: Evolution, Structure, and Economics. 2nd ed. Tulsa, OK: PennWell Publishing, 1995.

Books & Articles on Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, & Repair

Our recommended books about building & mechanical systems design, inspection, problem diagnosis, and repair, and about indoor environment and IAQ testing, diagnosis, and cleanup are at the InspectAPedia Bookstore. Also see our Book Reviews - InspectAPedia.

The Home Reference Book - the Encyclopedia of Homes, Carson Dunlop & Associates, Toronto, Ontario, 25th Ed., 2012, is a bound volume of more than 450 illustrated pages that assist home inspectors and home owners in the inspection and detection of problems on buildings. The text is intended as a reference guide to help building owners operate and maintain their home effectively. Field inspection worksheets are included at the back of the volume. Special Offer: For a 10% discount on any number of copies of the Home Reference Book purchased as a single order. Enter INSPECTAHRB in the order payment page "Promo/Redemption" space. InspectAPedia.com editor Daniel Friedman is a contributing author.

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