The Payne website shows Aluminized-steel for the heat exchanger on the 80% efficiency single stage gas furnace.
Carrier Infinity Furnace Heat exchanger shot
- Thread starter Cropduster172
- Start date
The Payne website shows Aluminized-steel for the heat exchanger on the 80% efficiency single stage gas furnace.
If your furnace is over 90 percent efficient it has two heat exchangers. Doesn't matter if its single stage or two stage.
Just checked. Ours is the 96% efficiency model...primary is aluminized steel, secondary is stainless.
After the 52nd week of 2011, all carrier / bryant / payne residential furnaces use an aluminized steel primary heat exchanger and a full stainless steel tube secondary heat exhanger.
What a lot of people do not realize is that stainless resists rusting, and resists certain chemical attacks, but it does not resist fatigue cracking over time. They can indeed split open on the tubes, or on the shells, and also any stressed area can crack just like aluminzed steel can.
The issue with the older (Pre 5211 serial#) carrier / bryant / payne is that the secondary heat exchanger was just simply mild steel and then they coated it with a PPL (polypropylene laminate) coating to prevent the acid from the condensate eating away at the mild steel. Over time this PPL coating would begin to degrade and rot out the mild steel.
The goal is to have blistering hot gas exiting the primary heat exchanger and then drop down into the secondary to begin "condensing" making water, and if this id done the heat exchangers last a long time. Problems arise when the condensing begins in the primary HX, conversly when too hot of gasses enter the secondary, the rear coupling components fail prematurely.
And yes, modern furnaces have a ton of cost cutting. They will not last trouble free for 20 years. They will need some kind of minor repair periodically, like new limit switches, fan motors, exhaust motors, etc.
What a lot of people do not realize is that stainless resists rusting, and resists certain chemical attacks, but it does not resist fatigue cracking over time. They can indeed split open on the tubes, or on the shells, and also any stressed area can crack just like aluminzed steel can.
The issue with the older (Pre 5211 serial#) carrier / bryant / payne is that the secondary heat exchanger was just simply mild steel and then they coated it with a PPL (polypropylene laminate) coating to prevent the acid from the condensate eating away at the mild steel. Over time this PPL coating would begin to degrade and rot out the mild steel.
The goal is to have blistering hot gas exiting the primary heat exchanger and then drop down into the secondary to begin "condensing" making water, and if this id done the heat exchangers last a long time. Problems arise when the condensing begins in the primary HX, conversly when too hot of gasses enter the secondary, the rear coupling components fail prematurely.
And yes, modern furnaces have a ton of cost cutting. They will not last trouble free for 20 years. They will need some kind of minor repair periodically, like new limit switches, fan motors, exhaust motors, etc.
Good information here.
Ditch it and go with another brand.
Went with a Payne ...had it for a year+ runs great.
