Fire Damage From Faulty Attic Furnaces Continues to Climb

Faulty Consolidated attic furnaces, cited by firefighters as the cause of several home fires this month, continue to bedevil hundreds of Southern California homeowners.

Residents from Lancaster to Laguna Hills are choosing to keep furnaces they know are defective, living without heat or taking other stopgap measures to protect their homes against a potential fire hazard. Many are finding that their builder, their insurer or their home warranty company won’t finance a new unit or pay to have it installed.

For some Southland residents, discovering a faulty furnace in their home shattered their peace of mind.

Torrance resident Jim Gicas said that even after he paid $2,900 last month to replace his Consolidated furnace, he continued to climb into his attic on a 6-foot ladder to watch his new furnace operate.

“It’s got a big psychological aspect,” Gicas said. “With a new furnace it probably goes away, but for a period of time it doesn’t.”

For others, it shook their faith in their neighbors. Consolidated attic furnaces were often installed by builders in whole subdivisions and condominium complexes, forcing entire neighborhoods to come to terms with the problem.

“I’ve been dealing with some condo complexes in which the homeowners associations are requiring mandatory inspections,” said Dan Armstrong, owner of California Air Concepts, an Orange-based heating and air-conditioning contractor. “The homeowners have not been very cooperative. They think the association or the builder should pay for the inspections.”

And many homeowners still don’t know about the problem furnaces. A Consolidated attic furnace sparked an early-morning blaze this month in Lomita, rousting homeowners out of bed and causing about $8,000 in damage, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department reports.

In a separate blaze, a Consolidated furnace filled a Rolling Hills Estates home with smoke and caused minimal damage, firefighters said. Firefighters say the units also caused recent fires in Torrance and Rancho Palos Verdes.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning about the attic furnaces in the fall on the same day a Times investigation revealed that hundreds of thousands of California consumers owned the faulty units--alleged to have caused scores of fires in the state in the last decade. For more information on furnace brands and model numbers, visit the Torrance Fire Department’s Web site at https://www.tfd.torrnet.com and click on the “Notice of Fire Hazard” link.

Consolidated Industries, which went bankrupt last year, distributed the attic furnaces under at least 30 brand names in air-quality management districts in Northern and Southern California from 1984 to 1992.

Reports by federal safety engineers who tested the furnaces show that they cause fires because of alterations Consolidated made to comply with California’s regional smog-control rules.

Since the Times story ran, hundreds of homeowners have found themselves facing winter knowing they had a faulty attic furnace. Many balked at the $2,000 to $3,000 required to replace their units. Some chose to use their furnace “sparingly,” with disastrous consequences, fire investigators say.

A Torrance resident knew his furnace presented a fire danger because his neighbor’s furnace had caught their condominium complex on fire in 1996, said Michael Freige, a senior fire inspector for the Torrance Fire Department. But the owner didn’t call the gas company or a heating and air-conditioning contractor to inspect the unit, Freige said.

A few weeks after he put the unit up for sale, a carpet cleaner inadvertently turned on the furnace to dry the carpets. The furnace ignited a fire in the attic on Jan. 7, causing $50,000 in damage, Freige said. The homeowner and his real estate agent would not comment for this story.

Freige, who has been leading the charge to inform Southland residents of the faulty appliances, said he has received calls from residents asking him “just how dangerous” it is to use their Consolidated furnaces--even after they’ve been red-tagged by the gas company.

Gas company inspectors do not take apart furnaces and inspect them, but rather turn them off, attach a red tag and suggest homeowners hire a heating contractor to take the unit apart and look for any sign of damage.

Some residents who chose to keep the faulty furnaces didn’t disclose that fact to people who eventually purchased their homes.

“I’m pretty sure the owner knew about this but they’re in Hong Kong, so I couldn’t serve papers because I wanted to go to Small Claims Court,” said Gicas, who didn’t know his home had a Consolidated furnace when he moved in last July. “I think the real estate agent knew too.”

Some homeowners have had help from builders such as KB Home, who ripped out Consolidated attic furnaces and installed new units in hundreds of its homes. But other builders haven’t been so forthcoming.

About 94 residents living in a Murrieta subdivision with 150 homes found out that they had Consolidated attic furnaces and are trying to get the builder, Pardee Construction Company, to replace the units.

The residents, who filed a separate case against Pardee three years ago alleging construction defects, say the builder is replacing furnaces only for residents not included in this case.

“Pardee will replace the furnaces for the people in the tract who aren’t in the lawsuit,” said Albert Quintrall, a San Diego attorney representing the homeowners.

Pardee isn’t allowed to contact residents involved in the lawsuit, said Chris Hallman, an attorney representing the builder, adding that because of this the company has been unable to determine how many residents in the subdivision own Consolidated furnaces.

Other builders are only replacing damaged Consolidated furnaces, leaving homeowners’ associations to wade through warranty documents to determine if they have some recourse.

“We have 55 units here, and I believe in testing they have replaced the roughly 10% that have failed,” said Brad Crosley, president of the Hillview Serrano Homeowners Assn. in Lake Forest.

Crosley said the development’s builder, Warmington Homes, hasn’t decided if it will reimburse homeowners who chose to replace furnaces on their own, adding “they’re ducking the issue.” Warmington wasn’t available to comment for this story.

Crosley’s condominium complex is one of many that owns furnaces with 50,000 BTUs or less. BTUs, or British thermal units, are a measure of energy, or the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit.

The CPSC’s warning focused on Consolidated attic furnaces with a rating of 60,000 to 100,000 BTUs. The agency has said that it doesn’t have “any data that indicate that such smaller units present a risk of fire similar to that associated with the larger units.”

But many Southern Californians who own furnaces with fewer BTUs are still unsure if it’s safe to operate their units. Some consumers with these units took the CPSC’s advice to raise the furnace and install a noncombustible material underneath it.

Some Consolidated furnace owners decided to use alternate heating methods this winter so they can save money to buy a new furnace.

“I’ve been using a wood-burning fireplace, as does my neighbor,” said Oak Hills resident Thomas Nation Trujillo. “I plan to replace my furnace as soon as economically possible.”

Even homeowners whose furnaces have been given a clean bill of health, such as Torrance resident Fred Virrazzi, installed smoke detectors in their attics just in case.

“I had my unit inspected and they found no damage,” Virrazzi said. “But I will replace it since I believe it will eventually fail.”

Virrazzi said he turns off his furnace whenever he leaves the house.