furnace repair

Has your home relied on the same furnace to heat it up for more than 20 years now? If so, you might need more than just furnace repair.

The average furnace is only going to last for about two decades before it’ll need to be replaced. You should consider replacing yours if it’s older than that and experiencing issues.

If, however, your furnace isn’t that old, you should try to get away with fixing your furnace as opposed to replacing it when you have problems with it. You can usually have furnace repair done to bring your furnace back to life when you have a broken furnace on your hands.

You’ll need to keep an eye (and in some cases, an ear!) out for a damaged furnace, though. There are certain signs that are going to let you know that you’ll need to do furnace repair ASAP.

Check out seven surefire warning signs that will show that you need to do furnace repair below.

1. Your Furnace Doesn’t Turn On and Stay On for Good

When you go over to your thermostat and turn your furnace on, what do you expect to happen? You expect for your furnace to turn on, right?

Right. And you also expect for it to stay on for good. Your furnace isn’t going to help you very much if it turns on and then shuts right back off.

With this in mind, you should always pay close attention to your furnace when you fire it up for the first time in a little while. It should turn on and stay on, and it should continue to do this every time that you start it up.

If, for whatever reason, it doesn’t do this, you should avoid trying to turn it on and off more than a few times. It’s going to be clear that there is an issue with your furnace that will require a repair.

2. Your Furnace Isn’t Producing Enough Heat

In addition to turning on and staying on, you also expect your home’s furnace to be able to heat your house when it’s running. This is, after all, the only real job that a furnace has in your home.

As a result, you should be at least a little bit concerned if your furnace doesn’t seem to be producing enough heat. It might just take a little bit for your home to warm up when you first turn your furnace on. But if it doesn’t eventually get warmer in your home, that will suggest that you might need to have furnace repair done.

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The last thing that you want to do is keep letting your furnace run when it’s not producing enough heat. You’ll just be wasting energy if you do this.

Instead, you should turn your furnace back off and try to get to the bottom of what’s going on with it. There might be an issue with your ductwork, your thermostat, or some other aspect of your home’s heating system.

3. Your Furnace Is Making Your Whole House Smell Strange

If you’re using your furnace for the first time in a while and it’s making your home smell a little funky, you won’t have to worry about it too much. It’s normal for a furnace to produce some strange smells when it’s been sitting stagnant for a few months.

But if your furnace keeps on sending strange smells out throughout your home, that could be a cause for concern. You might have a gas leak going on with your furnace, or you might have a whole lot of dust stuck in your heating system.

Either way, you aren’t going to want to let your furnace run for too long when it’s producing strange smells. You should give it ten minutes or so to run, and if the smells don’t go away, you should turn it off for the time being.

You’ll have a big problem on your hands if you let a furnace run when there is a gas leak. You’ll need to have furnace repair performed sooner than later to prevent this problem from getting even worse than it already is.

4. Your Furnace Makes a Lot of Weird Sounds

Even the newest furnaces on the market today are going to make at least some noise when you turn them on. It’s pretty much impossible to run a furnace without it generating noise in your home.

But if you notice that your furnace is suddenly making way more noise than it used to, that could be a problem. You’ll want to listen out for any banging, squealing, or groaning noises coming from the general direction of your furnace.

These noises are typically a sign that there are broken or loose components inside your furnace. These components will need to be either fixed or replaced before you can quiet your furnace down.

Outside of the fact that running a noisy furnace will be annoying, it could also mean that a small issue with your furnace is getting worse. It might get even louder in the coming days and weeks as furnace components continue to break.

If your furnace is making more noise than you’re used to, it could be trying to tell you something very important. Do your best not to ignore it for longer than you should.

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5. Your Furnace Is Taking a Toll on Your Home’s Indoor Air Quality

Does it feel like you’re getting a cold almost all the time? Are you constantly coughing, sneezing, and rubbing your watery eyes to stop them from itching and burning?

These are some of the signs that you’ll see when your home’s indoor air quality isn’t good. Your body is going to have a hard time processing this air when you breathe it in.

In some cases, investing in an air purifier for your home might do the trick. You might also be able to improve your home’s indoor air quality by having your air ducts cleaned.

But at the end of the day, it could be your furnace that is taking a big toll on your home’s indoor air quality and dragging it down. You can get around this particular problem by doing furnace repair to make the air in your home clean again.

6. Your Furnace Has a Pilot Light That Isn’t Blue

When is the last time that you snuck a quick peek at the pilot light in your furnace? If you haven’t done it in quite some time now, it would be well worth checking it out to check up on the health of your furnace.

In a perfect world, you want the pilot light in your furnace to be blue. This will show that the pilot light is healthy and working like it’s supposed to.

But if you see that the pilot light has turned a different color like, say, yellow, that is not going to be a good sign. It might indicate that your furnace isn’t being ventilated properly. And in a worst-case scenario, the whole thing could combust on you without any warning.

It’s why you should perform routine check-ups on your furnace’s pilot light. It’s going to keep your furnace in better shape than it would be otherwise.

7. Your Furnace Has a Carbon Monoxide Detector That Is Going Off

All furnaces have carbon monoxide detectors that are built into them. If yours ever goes off on you, it’s not something that you’re going to want to ignore.

When a carbon monoxide detector goes off, it means that there is too much carbon monoxide escaping from your furnace. It could expose you and your family to it and increase the chances of you suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide poisoning can literally put your life at risk. You should throw open as many windows as you can if your carbon monoxide detector ever goes off and get out of Dodge until you can have furnace repair done.

What to Do If You’re In Need of Furnace Repair

Have you spotted any of the signs listed here? If you have, then you’re most likely going to need to have furnace repair done sometime soon.

There are some furnace repair problems that will prove to be more serious than others. But generally speaking, you should always spring into action at the first sign of trouble with a furnace and fix it.

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Here are the steps that you should take when you suspect that you might need to do furnace repair:

  1. Start by turning your furnace off and leaving it off until it’s been looked at by a furnace technician
  2. Touch base with a furnace repair specialist to see if they can take a trip out to your home to fix your furnace
  3. Let a furnace repair specialist know about the issues you’ve been having with your furnace
  4. Sit back and let a furnace repair specialist work on your furnace to get it up and running like normal again

You should not, under any circumstances, attempt to start taking your furnace apart to see what’s wrong with it. Unless you’ve been repairing furnaces for years now, this is going to do a lot more harm than good.

The only acceptable response to seeing one of the signs that you need furnace repair is reaching out to an HVAC company for assistance. Call them and say, “I need help fixing my furnace right away.”

Who to Trust to Perform Furnace Repair

While you should contact an HVAC company to help you with any furnace repair jobs you need done, you shouldn’t trust just any company to assist you. You should look around for the right company to lend a hand when your furnace is on the fritz.

There are well over 100,000 HVAC companies in the U.S. at this very moment. This should provide you with a wealth of options when you have a broken furnace.

This is how you can locate an HVAC company to set you up with the furnace repair services you’re interested in:

  1. Google “furnace repair near me” or something more specific like “furnace repair San Francisco” and write down the names of all the HVAC companies that pop up
  2. Research each individual HVAC company that you can find in your area by visiting their website
  3. Find out how much experience different HVAC companies in your city have
  4. See which local HVAC companies specialize in providing people with furnace repair
  5. Read the online reviews for the various HVAC companies in your area to see which have the best reputations
  6. Choose the HVAC company that looks like it’s going to be your best option
  7. Schedule a day and time to get your furnace fixed

A good HVAC company will be able to answer the question, “Is my furnace broken?”, for you. They’ll also be able to fix your furnace right up so that you can begin heating your home again.

Stop Asking “Is My Furnace Damaged?” and Hire Someone to Help Fix It

If you live in a place where it gets very cold at certain times throughout the year, you won’t be able to live without a furnace for long. So you need to make sure that you stay on top of any furnace repairs that might need to be done.

If you see one of the signs listed here, it’s going to mean that you need furnace repair. You should start trying to get in touch with HVAC companies right away to find out which one can help you. It’ll ensure that you don’t have to spend too long living in a home without heat in it.

Find more tips on caring for your home’s heating and cooling system by browsing through the other articles posted on our blog.