Quote:
Originally Posted by thing
We have to constantly keep an eye on it to ensure it doesn't plug up. I'm hoping it is a simple solution vs re-routing venting etc.
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Yup, and what happens when you want to go on vacation or away for a weekend...
Again, please confirm the exact questions/description above, but if my above description of your system is correct and it's the 2" PVC on the left which is your air intake and is freezing up, cutting the pipe at lower level where it first comes out of the wall horizontally, and attaching an elbow so the intake faces downwards, is a very easy fix. This would be simple enough to do yourself, will take about 15 minutes and cost less than $5 for the elbow, and you can even just pressure fit the elbow until you confirm it fixes the problem (the glue isn't absolutely necessary as it's only conveying fresh air, but is again required by your install manual so you should eventually glue it). If there isn't enough length of straight pipe left where the intake comes out of the wall to cut and fit an elbow, another option would be to cut a section out of the vertical pipe on the air intake, then just reinstall the same gooseneck (using a coupling fitting), to bring the air intake vertically lower that way. Either of these are not a major re-route at all but if you're not comfortable doing this yourself, definitely hire a qualified furnace / HVAC tech.
You can and should look up the installation manual for your exact furnace model yourself, to look at the recommended air intake configuration, but of the many configurations shown in the manuals, most of them have some vertical separation. Bottom line, in our climate with these extreme cold snaps, you ideally want some vertical separation between the intake and exhaust to help keep the boiler/furnace/HW tank from ingesting it's own flue products i.e. warm moist air (with intake pointed down, and exhaust pointed outwards or even some angle up). Your original questions of changing the angle of the air intake by adding an elbow (so now it will be pointed outwards?) is the same amount of work as what I've suggested and will likely not help the situation, as it will still be at the same height and very close proximity to the exhaust.
The acceptable "venting configurations" page in most furnace manuals are virtually identical, feel free to look at the bottom of page 42 of the link below for some visuals of the "vertical separation" that I'm referring to.
https://www.utcccs-cdn.com/hvac/docs..._ICP_24220.pdf