The last thing any homeowner wants to experience in the middle of a North Shore or Seacoast winter storm is furnace problems. The team at Kearney HVAC understands that a well-functioning heating system isn’t a luxury in New England, it’s a necessity. If you’ve experienced any of these problems with your furnace, boiler, or heat pump, give our team of heating experts a call to find a solution that will keep you cozy all winter long.
1. Your Vents Only Blow Cold Air
If your furnace or ducted heat pump is only blowing cold air from the vents, the first thing you should do is check your thermostat to make sure it’s set to HEAT or AUTO instead of FAN or ON. If all of your settings are correct, check your air filter if you haven’t recently and change it if there is a build-up of debris. After these steps, give the team at Kearney a call to identify the issue.
There could be many different reasons for your vents blowing cold air or other airflow problems, including:
- Nízká hladina paliva
- Reversing valve issues (for heat pumps)
- Dirty outdoor units (heat pumps) or flame detector (furnaces)
- Ucpané vedení kondenzátu
2. You Heating Bills Keep Going Up
An increase in your energy bills without a coinciding rise in your utility rates or consumption is a sign that your heating system is losing its efficiency. This could be due to your furnace aging, a lack of maintenance, or even your duct system. In any case, it should be inspected by a professional. The heating experts at Kearney can evaluate your heating system to find the source of your efficiency issues and make recommendations to help you save energy with a reliable solution.
3. Your Furnace Struggles to Keep Up With Demand
In the same way that a furnace loses its efficiency as it ages, it also loses its performance power. This could be why you may feel like you’re not as comfortable in your home as you used to be. Other signs that your furnace isn’t operating at peak performance could be that the system is constantly running or cold spots in certain areas of your home. If your heating system is having these problems and it’s relatively new, it could be improperly sized for your home and should be inspected.
4. Your Furnace Is Making New Sounds
While some noise is relatively normal for most furnaces (especially older models), you should always take note if your heating system starts making a noise it never has before. Pay close attention to when your system kicks on because that is the most likely time it will make certain “red flag” sounds. Banging, screeching, or clanking, should all be checked out with a furnace repair visit from Kearney.
5. Increased Need for Repairs
If your heating system has been having recurring issues, it’s most likely time for a replacement. In many cases, it turns out to be more cost-effective to get a newer, better performing model than to continue paying out of pocket for repairs. In general, if the cost of furnace or heat pump repair is half or more of the cost of a new system, we advise installing a new heating system.
Do You Need a Furnace Replacement?
It can be difficult to know when it’s time to replace your furnace with a newer model, and at Kearney, we recommend taking a few key points into consideration as you decide:
- Your comfort – If you can’t get comfortable in your own home, it might be time to get a replacement.
- Your utility costs – Energy rates are consistently on the rise in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and replacing your heating system with an energy-efficient upgrade could end up saving you in the long run.
- Your furnace’s age – Older furnaces and even heat pumps weren’t made to the same efficiency standards that we have today. If your heating system is having problems and it’s more than 10 years old, a new system could be the best option.
- Available incentives – There are many ways to make your furnace replacement more affordable with incentives. With federal tax credits covering up to 30% of the cost of an energy-efficient heating system and Mass Save® heat pump rebates up to $10,000, upgrading your old furnace has never been easier.
At Kearney HVAC, we want you to be comfortable through every season of the year, and whether you’re interested in natural gas, ductless heat pumps, or anything in between, we’re here for you. Our highly-trained team can help get to the root of your heating problems to get your comfort back. We even offer comprehensive service agreements to give you peace of mind with heating maintenance.
Have you ever fired up your heater only to be greeted by a long, unceasing blast of cold air that never warms up? There aren’t many things that are more frustrating for a homeowner. You flip on your heater when your home is uncomfortable, and the odds are that the blast of cold air hasn’t helped the matter at all. Is your heater broken completely? Do you need to completely replace your system?
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at what can cause your heater to output nothing but cold air and explain what may need to be done to fix the issue.
Make Sure Your Thermostat is on Heat
This may seem like the silly and completely obvious solution, sort of like checking your gas gauge when your car dies or making sure that your new electronic device is plugged in when it refuses to turn on. However, you’d be shocked at how many times customers call for a heater blowing cold air, only to discover that the cause of the issue was their thermostat was set to “cool» instead of heat.
It’s an easy mistake to make. Over summer, we simply get used to switching the thermostat on and off to the “cool» setting as it gets warm quite easily. Start your search here and you may save yourself a lot of trouble.
What Type of Heater Do You Have?
Once you’ve verified that the setting of your thermostat isn’t the issue, the next big question to answer is what type of heating system do you have? While all heating systems have the same function, they can be performed in very different ways. Furnaces generate heat by burning fuel while heat pumps don’t actually generate heat at all, but instead harvest it from the air outside and condense it to warm your home.
By far, the two most common types of forced-air heating equipment in the Bay Area are heat pumps and furnaces. Here are three common issues that can result in each of them blasting your home with an unending stream of cold air.
What Are the Most Common Heat Pump Problems?
The most common heat pump issues include:
Dying Compressor
Heat pumps are essentially the same thing as your air conditioner, just with the cycle reversed. Rather than collecting heat from your indoor air, they collect heat from the air outside, amplify it with a compressor, and then send it inside where air forced over your indoor coil extracts it and then warms your home. However, if your compressor can’t compress your refrigerant, your heat pump simply won’t work. Usually, you’ll be able to tell if this is the case. However, faulty compressors tend to make a ton of noise and even compressors that don’t work anymore significantly change the noise coming from your outdoor unit.
Únik chladiva
You need to have a very specific amount of refrigerant in your lines for your heat pump to work properly. If there is too much pressure, the lines could burst and your compressor could fail. Not enough pressure and your compressor and other components will be starved for refrigerant, causing them to fail and vacuums to form that could cause serious breakdowns. While your system should have the perfect amount of refrigerant in it under normal conditions, even small leaks can cause a shortage of refrigerant that can cause your system to break down.
Frozen Outdoor Unit
Your outdoor unit is naturally going to get extremely cold from the heat collection process. For refrigerant to extract heat energy from an already pretty cold atmosphere, the refrigerant flowing through it needs to be significantly colder and often well below the normal freezing point of water. Water vapor can build up on outdoor units, creating frost that then progresses to ice, and before you know it your outdoor unit is completely frozen over and can’t collect any heat energy at all. Heat pumps will naturally run defrosting cycles periodically to prevent this from happening, but broken sensors or other flaws can cause these safety cycles to fail and freeze over your system.
What Are the Most Common Furnace Issues?
Here are the most common furnace problems:
Porucha zapalování
An ignition fault is something that prevents your heating element from turning on. With a gas-powered furnace, the most common type in the Bay Area, an ignition failure usually means a faulty pilot light or faulty ignitor that can’t light the gas flowing through the heating element itself. The easiest way to tell when you have this problem is that when you turn on your heater, you get nothing but cold air and you smell gas in your home.
Gas Connection Issue
If you don’t smell gas and are getting nothing but cold air from your furnace, then there’s a chance your issue is probably related to your furnace’s gas connection. The gas valve may have been shut off or your gas supply line could have a problem. Either way, you should have your system checked by our technician as soon as possible.
Dying Heating Element
As they age, heating elements can become weaker and weaker. Eventually, they simply won’t be able to produce a strong enough flame to keep up with the heat needed to warm the air in your heat exchanger. Replacing the heating element will usually solve this issue, but it may also be an indication that your furnace may need replacement. This isn’t a common issue to have and it’s usually a clue that other components of your HVAC unit may be quitting on you fairly quickly.
When your furnace is giving you trouble, call Valley Heating, Cooling, Electrical and Solar at (408) 868-5500 and we’ll get it fixed for you as soon as possible.
