Obviously you found a clearly visible failure on this one, but a place to check on these Rheem tubular heat exchangers people often miss is where the small tubes attach to the transition box connecting them to the larger tubes. The tubes can come detached from the box. Just give each of the tubes a tug and if its loose, that's a failure. If you still have this heat exchanger, would be curious if you found loose tubes and if so, how many.
I'd love to see how well todays hardware lasts after 30 years in 2054. This unit is super clean. That condensate motor housing looks to be cast aluminum ! Bravo.
Our winters are not as bad as up north so a 20 year heat exchanger on today's units should be possible. Coldest it got this year was I think 28 degrees.
My Straight Talk phone has been out for about 3 days so I couldn't watch You or Steve Lav and Ms Molly. I think Straight Talk turned it off because it wasn't time for My Data to run out.
I found a Duncan 1997 excel 80 percent furnace in a basement with a new roll out switch laying in bottom under burners, aluminum foil wrapped around second new smart valve, and flames burning back under valve from burners ,plastics on valve body were being burned like a cigarette. Condemned his furnace, told customer if he had any idea how close his house came to burning up ,never use again his last heating tech. 10pm Roanoke Rapids n.c.
