It
gets cold in Chicagoland in the dead of winter. Temperatures of -40˚
are not uncommon. A malfunctioning furnace in these conditions begs
the basic issue: not only will the pipes freeze but so will the
people inside. It has happened but it doesn’t have to, at least in
Skokie where there is service available around the clock every day of
the week.
Sometimes
we discover that a furnace has been improperly installed and fails to
operate consistently. The majority of home furnaces are designed to
use natural or propane gas. It’s not something to tinker with
yourself. You will need qualified assistance. Other furnaces will be
either fuel oil or electric. Either way, you may not be qualified to
do maintenance other than the checks listed below.
Whatever
type of system you have and however it was designed, it is there and
it used to work but now it does not. What are you to do?
Troubleshooting
Your Furnace
Even
though you shouldn’t try maintaining a furnace yourself, there are
a few things you can do before you call a Skokie furnace repair
service:
- Check the thermostat. In dual systems which is the ones that control both the heat and the air conditioning sometimes the switch has moved away from the HEAT setting. Always check there first.
- Check the type of thermostat. Is your thermostat wired to the house power or does it have internal batteries? Modern battery-energized thermostats will signal low power. Perhaps you missed that.
- Is your system gas? It may seem simplistic, but check to ensure that the gas is “on.”
- Check the filter. Did you change it this year (if it is disposable)? Or did you clean it? Better yet, did you have annual maintenance on your furnace? That could keep you from having emergency service calls. The idea of a filter is to pull the dirt out of the air and keep it from entering the furnace, where it can do damage. Modern furnaces are designed to shut down when the filter can no longer pass air.
- The various pumps and fans associated with your furnace will require electricity. Perhaps the electricity has been interrupted to one of those. Turn the fans on manually. If they don’t work, something isn’t receiving power and will not operate.
- Look at the power panel. A furnace repair should have its own circuit breaker, and for some reason, the circuit was interrupted. A caution is important here, however. When a circuit breaks, there has to be a reason. If the furnace went out in a storm, perhaps the external power source was interrupted and now the breaker must be reset. However, if that breaker went out for something internally be very careful to verify that the furnace is working and if the circuit breaks a second time, get qualified help.
These
are but a few things you can do to double-check your furnace’s
operation. If those are done and you still have no heat, it’s time
to call.
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