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Furnaces have come a long way. Newer models don’t use constantly lit pilot lights, but instead, they use a mix of an ignition source, gas line, and a flame sensor to get your furnace moving.
This may seem like an odd task that we’ve faced during furnace repair in Sussex County, DE, but it’s enough to make your furnace stop entirely. The problem? You can’t DIY this, and we’ll explain why.
Your furnace is reliable, always there when you need it, and you barely notice it’s on. That is, until it starts making a ton of noise.
Once your furnace makes itself known through excessive (and unsettling) noise, that’s when it’s usually time to call for furnace repair in Sussex County, DE.
Let’s walk you through some of these sounds and what they mean so you can be prepared for anything that comes your way.
You don’t want to call for furnace repair in Sussex County, DE, but lo and behold, your furnace broke down again. It’s important to know what to look for before you contact a technician to come out and repair the issue. These are three of the most common problems your furnace runs into that can lead to breakdowns if left unchecked.
Any powered mechanical device can potentially overheat. A furnace, a powerful device designed to generate heat, is especially susceptible to overheating. You’ll know that your home’s furnace is overheating if it keeps shutting down early and you notice a burning odor coming from the vents. You may also notice a humming sound coming from the furnace, which indicates a motor that’s overworking.
The first thing you need to know in this situation is that the furnace is acting the way it should in case of overheating: it’s shutting off. Gas furnaces are designed with safety features that will shut the system down when overheating occurs. The furnace’s limit switch detects a temperature that’s too high and turns off the heating cycle.
You still need to have furnace repair in Milford to fix the furnace—you absolutely don’t want to risk any potential furnace dangers, and continuing to run the furnace puts it at risk of burnt-out motors and even more expensive repairs.
You may not have turned your furnace on yet for the season, but the time is approaching rapidly. We recommend you have regular maintenance for your furnace before the first true winter weather day, since this is the best help you can give to your heating system to make it through the season without trouble.
It’s furnace trouble that we’re here to talk about today, because one of the most common complaints the people who call us for furnace repair in Dover have is that their furnace cannot compete against the cold the way it used to. Instead, it’s leaving the house or certain rooms too chilly, and people are cranking up the thermostat to try to get more heat.
Calling us to investigate is the right step. You don’t want to open up the furnace yourself and tinker inside it—it’s potentially dangerous. We can help you better understand what might be happening by looking at several reasons why your furnace is falling behind on its job.
It’s easy for people like us who work in HVAC and are immersed in it every day to forget that most homeowners aren’t familiar with the terms of heating and air conditioning systems in the same way we are.
One example is the air handler. It can trigger confusion for people who hear “air,” then immediately guess the air handler means the air conditioning system. An air handler is important for an AC, but it does more. We often have to make repairs to air handlers to help with customers’ heating in Delaware. If you have a central furnace heating your house, whether electric or natural gas-powered, an air handler may be a part of how the furnace works.
You don’t want to have a dead furnace in a Maryland winter—that’s something you’ll know if you’ve spent even one cold day here. If you’ve had your current furnaces for over ten years, it is beginning to move into the territory where it could fail on you. Keeping up with routine maintenance each spring will make this less likely, but as the furnace continues to age, it will eventually reach a point where it won’t go on any further and repairs will be too costly to keep it running.
Fortunately, furnaces rarely burn their last without giving out several warnings of their imminent demise. If you pay attention to the furnace’s operation, you can catch some of these omens of a dying furnace and call for HVAC technicians in time. Our team of experts can tell if the furnace can be rescued with repairs or if a replacement is better. Below are five of the major signs to call us for assistance:
Furnaces make some noise when they run, but the sound of the burners and the fans isn’t distracting and you’re used to it as part of the sound of winter. But if your furnace starts to make more of a racket, one that has you occasionally looking up and thinking, “What was that?”, then something is probably wrong. These noises can include rattling, clicking, booming, and grinding. If it sounds off, have it looked into.
The furnace is running, hot air is flowing out of the room vents, and it would seem as if everything is okay. Except some rooms are not as warm as they usually are. If you can’t find a reason for this in the rooms themselves (such as cracks around windows or other drafts), then the furnace is probably losing its heating capacity—and it will continue to get worse until the furnace runs itself down.
This is when the furnace gets caught in a start-stop pattern that repeats multiple times over an hour. A furnace should run in heating cycles of at least 15 minutes before cycling down. Short-cycling can indicate several different problems, or possible multiple ones coming together if you have an older furnace.
A furnace, if maintained annually, should keep around 95% of its original energy efficiency up to the last two years of its service life. When you see that you are paying much more to run the furnace than you ever have before, it probably means the furnace is now in those final years. Repairs may only stall this: a technician can help determine if repairs are worthwhile.
Have you found yourself pushing your thermostat settings up higher and higher in order to warm up the house? You shouldn’t need to do this—the same steady temperature you normally set the furnace to should be fine, unless the furnace is starting to fail.
At Atlantic Refrigeration & Air Conditioning, Inc., “We Take Pride in Your Comfort.” Schedule service for your furnace—repair or replacement—with our team today.
When your furnace is running during cold weather, you have a good idea of what kind of noises it makes. A modern furnace won’t make a racket, but it does create a blanket white noise of air moving through the vents. When you’re near to the HVAC cabinet, you’ll be able to hear the burners running and the noise of the blower fan and its motor.
But if your furnace is making unusual sounds, ones you aren’t accustomed to hearing, you may feel worried something is wrong. Is it an emergency that needs 24/7 services from a Smyrna, DE, HVAC contractor? Or is it maybe nothing and you’re overreacting?
Have you ever tried to fix the cause of one problem, only to realize that the problem was due to something else entirely? Sometimes it happens to homeowners with their home heating. In particular, here are three unexpected causes of common heating issues:
Howling, booming, rattling, whistling…
Halloween has long since passed, so why does it sound like your furnace is haunted?
For a furnace repair expert, a furnace making strange noises isn’t the most unusual thing in the world… For the average homeowner, however, this could be quite alarming to them. Below, we’ll explain why your furnace might be making noises and what you need to do about it.
