Furnace placement has new-home buyer steaming mad

Dear Barry, I just bought a brand-new home with a gas furnace in the garage. The unit is installed on a raised platform, but it's not higher than the bumper of my car. The builder fastened cement bumpers to the garage floor to keep my cars from hitting the furnace, but the position of these blocks prevents my cars from pulling in enough so that the garage door can close. I told the builder about this, but he refused to move the blocks. Isn't he responsible for making the garage usable as a parking area? - Will Dear Will, The building code requires that a furnace in a garage be protected from vehicle impact and specifies three general methods: "by being installed behind protective barriers or by being elevated or located out of the normal path of vehicles." In your garage, elevating the furnace was not sufficient, so protective barriers were installed. But the builder should meet these requirements without creating new or unintended problems or difficulties. In this case, the primary pu...