This furnace flue vent was touching the return air duct would you write it up.
I have already written the report and am curious as to what others might have said in this situation.
Hi Charley,
yes I would have written it up, my thoughts are firstly that there is a potential safety issue as the flu will vibrate against the return and eventualy this will hole the flu, secondly there has to be efficiency issues with flu heat warming up the return duct.
Regards
Gerry
Hi yourself Gerry it was also single wall pipe exiting the top of the furnace.
Gerry, I think this might be a new version of a Heat Recovery unit. ha. ha. :mrgreen:
Kidding aside, Gerry, looks like the contact and condensation is creating rusting and eventually blow a hole in either one.
Yes, I would definitely write this up.
Marcel 
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I want to say you need a least an inch clearance around the flue. You wouldn’t want the flue to touch anything because of the temperatures of the gases being excavated from the unit. The problem can be corrected by making the elbow connected to the unit more of a straight 90 facing upwards.
Looks like its an attic installation and should be in b vent all the way from flu to cap and not touching any other objects.Matt
The 90 on that flue did not have any more room to adjust. The offset in the return duct was simply missed measured by the installer and my guess is they did not want to go back to the sheet metal shop and admit there measuring was wrong so they just installed it anyway.
Yes I did write this up because of the lack of clearance and the rust/heat on the duct. My most concern was the fire potential on the inner insulation of this duct even though the insulation is somewhat fire resistance the glue that is used to hold the insulation to the metal is not alway fire resistance. I recommended the the duct be extended with a collar to provide proper clearance.
The information label on a furnace I inspected last week called for 5" of clearence for the flue.