Furnace Repair in Newbury, VT
Furnaces here run from September through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Orange County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Nine months of heat, and nights near 11 below zero
Newbury needs heat from September through May. That is nine months of the burner cycling on and off, and on the coldest nights, when the temperature outside sits around 11°F, the furnace runs longer and more often just to hold the house steady. Every one of those cycles puts a little more wear on the igniter and the parts that get the burner lit.
A lot of homes here heat with fuel oil, and an oil furnace depends on a clean nozzle and a steady spark to fire correctly. Cold soaks into the fuel lines and the burner assembly overnight, and that is often when a furnace that was fine yesterday will not light this morning. Power matters too. Vermont sees its share of winter storms and wind, and when the power drops, so does the furnace, oil or gas, until it comes back.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 11°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.
There is no state record to check because Vermont does not keep one. No test, no license number, no state file on the business doing the work. Whatever confidence you have in the contractor has to come from somewhere other than a state license, because that piece does not exist here.
Furnace repair often means working on the gas line and the burner assembly, and a bad connection there is the dangerous part of the job. Vermont has no state license or registration covering that work. The protection that most states build around this kind of repair through licensing does not exist here.
Source: Vermont Department of Public Safety, Division of Fire Safety
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often the thermostat isn't calling for heat the way it should, or the furnace isn't getting power. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has fresh batteries if it uses them, and check the furnace switch and breaker. If those are fine, the igniter may have failed, or a safety switch has shut the furnace down because of a clogged filter or a blocked vent. With winter nights here dropping to 11°F on average, a furnace that won't start needs attention fast, and a contractor can trace it to the actual part in one visit.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- If air is moving but it's not warm, the burners likely aren't lighting even though the blower is running. That points to a bad igniter or flame sensor, a closed gas valve, or a pilot that's gone out. It can also mean the furnace is in its startup cycle, blowing a short burst of cool air before the heat exchanger warms up, which is normal for a few seconds. If cold air keeps coming for more than a minute or two, the burners aren't doing their job and a contractor needs to find out why.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This is almost always the thermocouple, the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to stay open. Once it wears out or sits slightly out of position, it reads the flame as out and shuts the gas off, even with the pilot lit. A draft blowing across the pilot or a dirty pilot opening can cause the same thing. Since a standing pilot runs on gas alone with no electricity involved, this happens the same way whether the power is on or off, and a contractor can replace the thermocouple or clean the opening to fix it.