All of the blowers that I have dealt with that didn't simply bolt on, were "sealed" by a strip of heavy felt slipped into a standard duct S slip, screwed to the inside of the furnaces air jacket on each of the four sides of the blower hole. When the blower is pushed into the hole, the felt seals it up well enough. I would think that this is the installers responsibility to do though.
The amount of air that the ash drawer and any seams on the furnace body can leak out is inconsequential in the big picture of setting static pressures on a 1000+ CFM blower. Your blower speed, duct system design, free flowing return air, and how you have any dampers or register shutters set in the supply ducts is 99% (or more) of it. Don't blame the Mfgr for inexperienced installer mistakes.
Cloud IT, before you wage all out war on SBI, how 'bout waiting long enough to see how they handle some of these other customers now. It's possible that they have copped an attitude toward you personally or that who you have been dealing with just stinks at their job. Either way is not good customer service, but it is possible, at least at this point, that yours is an isolated incident as far as how they have handled your problems. Not pushing the big RED button for a few more days won't hurt, give them a chance to respond to these other guys first, see what happens, then proceed accordingly.
I bet that the ones coming off the assembly line will soon be (if not already) fixed. It can't cost more than a few cents per unit more to seal up the ash drawer!
I can't tell from the pics, but I was wondering, how hard would it be to fix this ash drawer problem yourself? (for the average DIYer)
Wow, what? Do you even have or have seen this furnace in person?
First, the blower comes installed on every unit.
Second, if you think the blower being mounted like the attached photo is "inconsequential" in the big picture of static pressure then you are flat out wrong.
Third, I'm not waging all out war against anyone. I've made tons of positive comments in this thread about this furnace. It has great potential but as the SBI rep told me, they simply cut too many corners in the development and went too far with reducing cost. Fourth, I've had repeated issues that go weeks without getting a reply. Their customer service is bad, like really bad. My standards are probably a bit higher than most because I expect a similar type of experience that I provide for my customers. SBI's CS isn't even remotely close.
Fifth, I was told that I would get a prototype replacement furnace to test to see if the issues were fully resolved. The "fix" wasn't supposed to be ready until Jan and I started complaining about these issues and made contact with SBI in September. Their promise became a lie right before Christmas and I was told there was no fix for the ash pan gap and that I could get a bracket to fix the blower gap issue.
The ash pan gap runs the total length of the drawer area and would be next to impossible to properly fix. My dad was a boilermaker for his entire life and said he couldn't weld it.
Laynes69 I respect your opinion and fully disagree. Marking a product with a oversized ashpan as a feature knowing that you can't use it is simply wrong. You could as you say empty it out every time but you would have to wash the pan with soap and water to prevent fine ash dust from being distributed throughout your house. As you can see from my pictures I cleaned as best I could but the damage was already done and you see fine dust in every picture. If I clean it with water it just comes back. It's spread throughout the furnace jacket and my ducts in my home.
There are even more issues I haven't mentioned yet. When I received the unit the baffle was broken and they sent me a new one. It took a month and a half to receive but I did get it. When I tried to install it I ran into a problem removing the secondary burn tubes, they simply wouldn't come out. I sent an email requesting a phone call for help. I'm still waiting on that phone call.... I did receive a quick response from a guy that said to follow the directions and sent me a copy of the owners manual where it outlined the procedure. I had already told him i had it and that it wasn't working and sent him the pictures below when we finally got one out by simply pounding the crap out of it.
Turns out the secondary burn tubes warp under normal use and the lip will catch on the channel where the secondary air flows. Every one of mine were stuck and I had to use vice grips and a hammer to remove them. Well, actually my 70 year old dad had to do it
because I have two ruptured disks in my back and you can only imagine how awkward the position would be to remove them.
If you have a tundra/heatmax and have been using it for a month or so, go see if you can remove them. I would be interested to know your results.
You guys speak as if you are affiliated with SBI in some way. I have no such affiliation and that gives me the liberty to speak openly about the furnace defects.
