Equipment
- Carrier gas furnace
- Rusted ignition/choker component replaced
- Exhaust vent cleared and serviced
- Full burner/heat exchanger inspection
What the customer reported
The Carrier furnace in this Pleasanton home wasn’t starting reliably and was running rough when it did. The homeowner had owned the house for a decade and, by their own admission, hadn’t had the furnace serviced once in those ten years. That’s a longer interval than we’d recommend (annual tune-ups exist for a reason), but it’s also a real-world scenario we see often enough to know what to look for.
What we found
Two failure modes had accumulated:
- Corroded ignition/choker assembly: the electrical component that handles ignition timing had developed enough rust on its contacts to make ignition unreliable. Some cycles caught, some didn’t.
- Clogged exhaust vent: ten years of dust, debris, and the occasional insect nest had restricted the flue. The pressure switch was tripping intermittently because draft was inadequate.
Either one of these would have caused the symptoms. Together they were guaranteeing them.
What we did
- Replaced the rusted ignition/choker component (genuine Carrier part, model-specific timing matters)
- Cleared and serviced the exhaust vent end-to-end
- Inspected the burner assembly, heat exchanger, blower, and safety controls
- Verified draft, pressure switch operation, and ignition sequence over multiple full heat cycles
The detail that mattered
A ten-year service interval on a gas furnace isn’t catastrophic, most modern furnaces will tolerate it, but it dramatically narrows the range of what a “small repair” can fix. Caught at the annual tune-up stage, a rusted ignition contact gets cleaned and noted; a partially-blocked vent gets cleared. Caught at year ten, both have to be diagnosed in the dark while the furnace is broken, and you’re paying emergency rates instead of maintenance rates. The annual tune-up is the cheapest insurance product in HVAC.
What the homeowner got
Furnace restored to reliable startup and clean operation, draft restored, ignition timing back to spec. Repair covered under our 1-year parts + 1-year labor warranty.
The photos below show the diagnostic inspection of the furnace components and the original internal condition.
Photos
