Furnace heat exchanger failure leads to carbon monoxide spilling into home

Location: Langley

Regulated industry sector: Gas - Natural gas system

Incident overview

The cause of the incident was the furnace secondary heat exchanger design using polypropylene laminated mild steel materials. Rapid and excessive corrosion of these materials restricted airflow through the furnace resulting in production of carbon monoxide due to incomplete combustion.

This incident investigation formed part of our report on Carrier gas furnaces. For more information, download the full report.