Furnace Repair in Barre, VT
Furnaces here run from September through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Washington County will get in touch.
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Nine months of heat wears on a furnace
Your furnace runs from September through May here, nine months of the year. On winter nights that average 10°F, the burner is cycling on and off for hours at a stretch to keep up. That much cycling wears on the igniter and the flame sensor, the parts that light the burner and prove it caught.
44.2% of homes in the area heat with fuel oil, and oil furnaces have their own wear points on top of that. The nozzle can clog, and soot builds up on the heat exchanger over a season of steady firing. If your burner will not stay lit, or the furnace is short cycling, this kind of season is usually why.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 10°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 38 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Vermont has no state license for HVAC contractors.
Vermont has no state license or registration behind the name on the truck. The state does not test HVAC contractors and keeps no record of who is in the trade. Whatever confidence you have in the person doing the work has to come from somewhere other than the state.
For a furnace repair, the gas connection is the part that matters most, since a bad one is what makes the job dangerous. Vermont has no state-level check on that work. There is no license behind the repair and no state record of the person doing it.
Source: Vermont Department of Public Safety, Division of Fire Safety
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- The most common reason is a thermostat set wrong or a dead thermostat battery, so check that first. After that, look at your breaker panel and the furnace's own power switch, which looks like a light switch on or near the unit. A furnace with a standing pilot won't run if the pilot has gone out, and one with an electronic igniter can fail to start if that igniter has worn out. With winter nights here averaging 10°F, a furnace that won't start needs a contractor out quickly rather than left overnight to see if it sorts itself out.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Air blows before the burners have fully warmed up, so a minute or two of cool air at startup is normal. If it keeps blowing cold the whole cycle, the burners may not be igniting even though the blower is running, which can come from a bad igniter, a dirty flame sensor, or the gas valve not opening. It can also mean the thermostat fan setting is on rather than auto, which pushes air even when the furnace isn't heating. This isn't one to leave alone through a stretch where lows are running around 10°F.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- Usually this means the thermocouple has worn out. That's the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to keep gas flowing. When it fails, the valve shuts the gas off as soon as you let go of the reset button, even though the flame was burning. A draft blowing out the pilot or a dirty pilot orifice can cause the same thing, so a contractor needs to check which one it actually is before replacing anything.