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Is Your Furnace Giving You Trouble? - Advanced Mechanical

admin • October 29, 2018

If you’ve turned your furnace on at least once so far this season, you’ll have some idea if it’s working the way it should. We still recommend you have it properly maintained by our professionals if you haven’t scheduled this service yet (it’s necessary every fall), since this is the best way to ensure quality furnace performance.

But what if your furnace—even with maintenance—is already showing signs that something is wrong with it?

What Signs Are Causing You Concern?

First, let’s take a look at the symptoms you’ve noticed indicating furnace trouble. Below are the most common signs of a furnace malfunction:

Noise: A furnace always makes some noise as it runs. What we mean is loud or unusual noises you aren’t accustomed to hearing. Clanging, clicking, screeching, grinding—all can mean serious issues.
Uneven heating: Not all the rooms around your home are receiving the levels of warmth you expect. This could be from poor insulation or drafts around windows and doors. Or it could be a furnace losing heating power.
Short cycling: This is when the furnace seems to turn on and off multiple times during an hour. A heating cycle usually lasts around 15 minutes. Shorter run times often means trouble, and this places extra strain on the system.
Higher heating bill: If you’ve had the furnace running long enough to have already seen the effect on your heating bill, higher costs than expected may be due to a faulty furnace.

What Do These Signs Mean?

As we mentioned above, sometimes these aren’t indications of something wrong with the furnace. We advise you to first make checks on the thermostat settings and then change out the furnace filter to see if the problem clears up. (Yes, something as simple as a member of the family toying with the thermostat can be the source of your woes.)

If there isn’t a simple solution, you’re either looking at a repair or replace situation. If you only recently had maintenance done, you probably don’t need to replace the furnace. One of the jobs of a maintenance technician is to give advice about whether the furnace is at the point where it’s best to retire it. In most cases, calling for repairs can fix the problem: you may need to have a motor repaired, the burners cleaned off, or the ignition system replaced.

If you are overdue for maintenance, call for a technician right away to find out if the furnace needs to be replaced. We often recommend putting in a new furnace if the current system is over 15 years old. If repairs would cost more than half the price of a replacement, then we also advise going with the replacement.

For the Fort Lee, NJ furnace repair or replacement service you might need, rely on our experts. If you haven’t yet, please sign up for our maintenance plan , which offers extra benefits along with the care necessary to help your furnace avoid future repairs and an early replacement.