Question about Furnace Short Cycling..
In a previous post, someone mentioned that if your battery voltage is low, you will get short cycling. Short Cycling: (as i understand it) where the flame cuts off and back on during one heating cy...
Forum Discussion
theoldwizard1 wrote:
Home furnaces have an over temp sensor that will force a shutdown
Maybe the newest home furnaces made within the last 10 yrs will shut it down completely, but generally on the home furnaces I have had they overtemp only shuts down the burner only. Once the heat exchanger cools down to normal temps it will automatically relight the burner. Basically repeating the process unit the T stat temp is satisfied..
Excessive burner cycling can waste fuel (importantly with RVs and dry camping will considerably waste a lot of battery capacity) plus takes considerably longer to get things up to temp and if you are dealing with very cold weather the furnace will never satisfy the T stat temp.
My home furnace uses hot surface ignition which is basically a resitive layer of material deposited on a ceramic structure.. Excessive short cycling of the burner severely reduces the life of these ignitors.. At $30+ per ignitor you really want to make sure you are not having issues with short cycles.. Stinks to have one blow out in the middle of the night or on weekends.. I keep a new spare at all times..
