I have a Goodman furnace that is 6 years old and I have had problems with it for the last 3 or 4 years. Kind of sad for this being a replacement for a 35 year old furnace that still was working fine and in the 35 years had only been serviced 2 times. I bought the Goodman for the fear of the old one quitting anytime due to age and didn't want to be without.

The problem with this Goodman is that, it does not come on every once in a while, when the thermostat goes below the 72' setting. I have had qualified service men come out and flip a few switches and replace a part and flip on the switches and its fine. Then the same thing will happen again with the furnace not coming on and the service man will come out, and of coarse, flip switches, looks it over, flip switches, and it works, without replacing parts, they charge me for coming out and say they can't find anything wrong.

After watching them, I have recently been doing the same thing, flipping switches, waiting 5 minuets, flipping the switches and the furnace comes on, so my question is ---- what needs to be done to get this to come on without me having to call a service man every week to get this fixed. I have so far this week had to go through this restarting process 3 times and know that this is not what I paid for.

Any suggestions??

I have a Goodman furnace that is 6 years old and I have had problems with it for the last 3 or 4 years. Kinda sad for this being a replacement for a 35 year old furnace that still was working fine and in the 35 years had only been serviced 2 times. I bought the Goodman for the fear of the old one quitting anytime due to age and didn't want to be without.

That is a long time to have problems that have not been taken care of. While your old dependable furnace of 35 years was a great unit with little problems the new more modern units are not so trouble free BUT it is saving you about 30 to 40 percent on your utility bill as compaired to the old furnace so things are not that bad even with the problems that come with the new style furnaces.

The problem with this Goodman is that, it does not come on every once in a while, when the thermostat goes below the 72' setting. I have had qualified service men come out and flip a few switches and replace a part and flip on the switches and its fine. Then the same thing will happen again with the furnace not coming on and the service man will come out, and of coarse, flip switches, looks it over, flip switches, and it works, without replacing parts, they charge me for coming out and say they can't find anything wrong.

Since it does not want to come on sometimes when it is below 72 degrees did you ever think it might be a thermostat problem and not a furnace problem? What part or parts have been replaced by the qualified service man you mentioned? That information would be nice to know since we are trying to help and we need ALL the information in detail on what the qualified service man has done besides flipping switches. Talking about the switch flip thing. When you flip the switches you are resetting the furnace and if the thermostat if it is a electronic thermostat you are also resetting the thermostat. So it could be the thermostat or furnace with the problem from your current description of actions taken by the qualified service man or yourself.

The following questions need to be answered by you so we can help.

What is the Brand and Exact model number of the thermostat?
Exactly what switches are being flipped to get the furnace running again?
What is the Exact model number of the furnace?
What codes or number of blinks are showing on the diagnostic computer circuit board located in your furnace?

I have an idea of what might be the problem BUT we need all the information listed above to make sure we give the best information we can. Hopefully this issue can be resolved so you no longer have this problem. Waiting for your information and answers.

Oct '02 I purchased a Goodman model F GMNT 90 U2 N 060-3 furnace with a Payne Comfort Control Thermostat 907-110011-16.

I have had to have service for this intermittent starting problem in:

Oct '05 with this as the description of repair : On arrival found unit with clogged suction hose between switch and inducer motor. Cleared and system now working properly. ( I was witness to this service and the service person flipped switches before beginning any service, so I am not sure if the clogging was the actual problem although I'm sure it didn't help.)

Jan '07 called for service for furnace not coming on (same as before in Oct '05) - service persons description of repair : Diagnostic / Minor Repair. Cycled furnace several times, blewout pressure switch, cleaned fluid sensor blewout 90%. Furnace didn't start one time but never occurred again. Might be circuit board but is working now at this time. Customer will have to wait and see if it happens again.

Dec '07 same problem and this time I did the evaluation myself. I flipped switches, checked hoses, they were not clogged, waited five minutes, flipped switches, and furnace came on.

Jan '08 same problem called service person and it happened to be a Friday night after hours and was going to be charged an extra $100 on top of a service call and any repair and or parts just to come out. NO thanks!! I call my son to come look it over and told him what I had seen the repair person do and I did myself also, so he went through the process and it worked again.

Jan '08 same problem a few days later than the above problem AGAIN. I went through the whole process and the furnace started working again.

Dec '08 same problem, went through same process, it worked.

Jan '09 same problem, went through same process, it worked.

Feb '09 same problem, went through same process, it worked for two days, then I repeated the process.

At least it is still working, BUT, WHY do I have to keep doing this on a furnace that is still new to me. I have contacted GOODMAN Furnace Co to see if there were any problems with this model and was told NO ( of coarse, they weren't going to tell me yes). They told me the next time it happens to have the service person contact their Service Tech and go through the test.

The switches that I flip are the outside electric power switch and on the inside a black switch that says ON / OFF and it I believe to be the ignitor switch ( it is under the burner where the flames appear). Don't know if it is necessary to flip both, but it works for me.

Today two weeks into Feb '09 it is still working, but I never know, its really beyond frustrating.

As for the thermostat, I have it set at 72* for heat. I have not adjusted the setting at all.

Thanks for any direction on this problem!

Try cleaning the flame sensor. Easy does it if you have the combo ignitor/flamesensor.assembly. Steel wool,scotch brite pads,sand paper will work.

I noticed that you added the "Smart Valve" ignitor/sensor combo. Surely your dividend has increased substantially... ;)

Yes it had and will continue for a life time. LOL