If you want to keep your family safe and comfortable in your home, you need a proactive maintenance and repair plan for every appliance inside of your home. This is especially the case for those of you who want to make sure your heating systems are always ready for the cold winter months. In fact, the plan that you make should cover questions like, when do I need furnace repair?
With this in mind, here are seven signs of needing an HVAC technician to inspect and repair your furnace.
- Family Members Hear Loud Noises Coming from the Furnace
When you turn on your furnace, it is common to hear noises that indicate that it is turning on. This sound is easy to recognize, and it does not cause you or the family concern of any kind. According to John from the HVAC website, furnaceusa.com/ma/boston/, when the furnace begins to make one or more of the following sounds, you need to seek out help for inspection and repairs.
- Booming
- Clicking
- Squealing
- Rattling
- Chirping
Each of the above sounds is indicating that there are some specific problems that need to be repaired. For instance, if you are hearing a squealing sound radiating from your furnace, you will most likely need to replace a failing fan motor or a faulty belt as soon as possible. On the other hand, if you are hearing a clicking sound coming from your furnace, the HVAC repairman may need to replace a faulty flame sensor that’s failing. In either of these situations, you need these repairs to be done quickly in order to prevent any additional costly damage to your heating system.
- Flickering Lights and other Electrical Issues
In some cases, you may need to contact an HVAC technician for emergency repairs to be done to your heating system. Specifically, if the signs that you see and hear are indicating that there is a problem with the furnace’s electrical system. For instance, if you or any family member in the home notice flickering lights, humming sounds coming from the electrical system, or the breaker trips, these are dangerous signs that need to be addressed as an emergency right away.
- Gas Odors Radiating from the Furnace
Sometimes heating repairs may not be discovered by the sounds that the furnace makes. In some cases, the only warning signs of emergency furnace repair services needed is the smell of gas in the home. Because a gas leak in a furnace is nothing that a homeowner should fiddle around with themselves, the best course of action is to shut off the main valve in the home and then call an emergency repair team immediately.
- Heating Bills began to Quickly Escalate in Cost
If you want to know when you should repair your furnace, you may also find that some problems are not as easy to identify as others. In fact, sometimes you may not notice anything out of the ordinary happening with your furnace. This is because no one in the family smells gas or hear sounds of rattling or squealing.
Instead, the only clear signs of something going wrong with your furnace is the heating bills began to rise in cost dramatically over a short period of time. For instance, the problem that is not as apparent may be a malfunctioning component on the inside that makes the system use a lot more energy than usual.
- The furnace or heat pump blows cold air
If you live in a region in the country that is known for cold, bitter weather during the winter season, you need to know when to contact your HVAC technician for emergency furnace repairs. One of the most critical times is when your furnace only blows cold air. Based on the age of the furnace and its overall condition, these professionals can repair your present unit or recommend a new heating unit to avoid problems with the family suffering from cold icy temperatures in the home.
Also, if your furnace is blowing cold air, you may find that there are a number of different other issues that can affect the temperature of the air that is released in the room. In some cases, you may need to have the filter cleaned from clogs or replaced so that more warm air will enter the room. By making these repairs, the heating systems will not overheat nor shut off completely. Cleaning the air filters from clogs will also prevent the unit from blowing only cool air out.
- Rapid Cycling Occurs – Problems with Thermostat Controls
Some problems that you discover with your furnace is not necessarily an emergency that needs to be fixed immediately. However, there are some furnace repair jobs that need to be fixed as soon as the family can address them. For instance, when the family begins to hear sounds from the home’s furnace that turns off and on quickly, they are usually dealing with a thermostat problem called rapid cycling.
Rapid cycling is considered to be a safety precaution feature for the furnace and its control. So, even though it may not be compared to a hazardous emergency electrical heating repair problem, it still needs to be repaired relatively quickly to prevent this safety feature from failing altogether.
- Significant amounts of Dust Collecting in the home
When you are responding to the question, when do I need a furnace repair? You may find that the answer can vary greatly based on the situation and the circumstances involved. As referenced earlier, some of the signs are easy to identify, and others are not as apparent. Therefore, you need to know a little about both so that you address them as they occur. For instance, if you are keeping a relatively decent home that is usually free from dust and debris on your furniture, you may find that significant amounts of dust collecting in your home are not normal for you.
In some of these cases, you may track down the source of your problems to a malfunction in your heating furnace. This is because your furnace is designed to pull in dirty, dusty air from the outside of your home. This air is filtered, heated, and then blown into the atmosphere to warm the home throughout. When this process works as it should, little to no dust is left behind. On the other hand, if your air filtration process does not work properly, particularly in older furnaces, dust will be left behind on the surfaces of your furniture, floors, and other things in your home.
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