Company pulls out of furnace-pipe replacement program.(Recalls & Safety Alerts)

One of two manufacturers of plastic pipes used to vent toxic emissions from home-heating systems into the atmosphere will no longer pay its share of the repair costs, thus burdening consumers with hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses.

Roughly 93,000 of an estimated 250,000 gas or propane furnaces and boilers equipped with high-temperature plastic Ultravent, Plexvent, or Plexvent II vent pipes have been repaired since February 1998. That's when a mediator brokered a voluntary settlement between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and nearly all manufacturers in the home-heating industry to replace the pipes, which could crack or separate at the joints and leak deadly carbon monoxide. When the recall was originally announced, Hart and Cooley, the manufacturer of Ultravent pipes, agreed to participate in the program indefinitely. In late 1999, the company was acquired by EQ Corp. and renamed Falcon HC Holding Corp. Despite having ample assets to continue funding its share of the recall, EQ informed the CPSC that "it is not legally responsible and, therefore,will not do so." Attempts to interview EQ's legal counsel were ...