Louisville Furnace Repair

No one looks forward to service calls for furnace repair! If you want to avoid these inconvenient visits, not to mention furnace repair cost expenses, the best thing you can do for your heating system is to maintain it properly. Furnace maintenance should be performed by a professional once per year. Most homeowners prefer to do this during the fall months to ensure their furnaces are in tip-top shape when it comes time to use them later in the year. When performed by a professional, furnace maintenance tune-ups can eliminate the effects of the wear and tear your furnace sustains each heating season while giving the furnace the boost it needs to increase energy efficiency and service life.

Outside of professional furnace maintenance service, there’s one important step that you should make a priority – replacing the system’s furnace filter. Gas furnaces, heat pump units, and other forced air heating systems as well as air conditioning units use an air filter to remove airborne pollutants before they move into the furnace or air conditioner. Over time, these pollutants build up and you’ll have a clogged filter which will limit air flowing through the furnace and start causing damage if you run the furnace with the old furnace filter in it. Instead, replace the air filter on a regular schedule. In the winter, the furnace is in heavy use and air passes through the system more often – more frequent replacement is often needed during times like these.

It’s easy to know when to pick up the phone and call for furnace repair if your furnace doesn’t power up or is unable to produce any heat. These furnace repair problems usually get dealt with right away because they’re such a hindrance to indoor comfort – and they’re super easy to spot. Instead, the furnace issues you need to be more concerned with are the ones that don’t give off clear warning signs.

A gas furnace or other type of heating system can develop minor problems that don’t immediately stop the HVAC unit from operating. As you continue to use the furnace, these issues mount, causing a drop in overall system energy efficiency along with damage to components of the furnace. These problems grow more severe with every passing heat cycle, resulting in the need for a more complicated furnace repair and the actual cost for the furnace repair cost will make homeowners spend more to repair their heating system at this point than if repairs were made early on.

Avoid damage and high cost of repairs when you know the furnace warning signs to watch for:

Your furnace should only make the same sounds it makes on a regular basis – a quick click from the thermostat as the furnace turns on and off, another click when the burner flames are ignited by the pilot light or electronic ignition system, and the dull hum of the furnace blower motor circulating air during a heat cycle. Any new and unexpected sounds from your furnace or heating system should be considered troublesome.

Examples include:

• A faulty flame sensor makes a continual clicking from the furnace when it attempts to start a heat cycle.
• A bad control panel or circuit board can create repetitive clicks when the furnace tries to start a heat cycle.
• Worn-down furnace blower motor bearings generate a grinding noise during the heat cycle.
• Dirty burners, a faulty ignitor, or a broken flame sensor causes natural gas to combust, producing a rumbly noise.
• A loose or damaged fan belt in the furnace blower motor assembly produces a squeal-like sound.

When working correctly, your furnace should heat your home for 10 to 15 minutes at a time and do so two to three times each hour. When the heat cycles only run for half this time or less, the furnace is short cycling, which can be due to one of these causes (repair or replacement will vary depending on the reason causing short cycling):

• A clogged filter overheats parts inside the furnace like the heat exchanger due to restricted airflow, which is why they should be replaced regularly. The limit switch kills the heat cycle in furnaces for safety.
• If the thermostat batteries are bad, it often won’t read the temperature correctly – this forces the thermostat to send bad instructions to the furnace.
• The furnace blower motor receives electricity from the run capacitor to start up and operate. If the capacitor fails, the blower motor won’t run which causes the heat exchanger and other parts to overheat and sustain damage.
• If the flame sensor is blocked by rust and corrosion, it may not be able to detect flames in each burner – thinking there is a problem with the system’s ignition due to the missed flame, the furnace will shut down for safety.
• When a furnace is too large for the size of the home, it will rapidly heat the area and the heat cycle will end abruptly. Furnace replacement is the only way to stop this issue.

Short cycling impacts your utility bill negatively. The system uses more energy to run shorter cycles, causing your heating bills to increase.