What good is a gas furnace during an Ohio winter if it won’t stay on long enough to heat a house? Not much, and if this is happening in your home, you may need to call our technicians for heating repair in Akron, OH. Although there might be a simple troubleshooting step you can take to solve the problem, anything more advanced must be left to our trained professionals. Amateur work on a gas furnace is potentially dangerous!
Let’s get down to business and see why your furnace is struggling to stay on…
Lack of airflow is causing it to overheat
One of the first things to check on your furnace is if its filter is dirty and needs to be replaced. Lack of airflow into the furnace can have several detrimental effects, and one of them is causing the heat exchanger (the part of the furnace that does the actual heating of the air) to fail to cool down. If this part overheats, it trips a limit switch that will shut down the furnace. The heat exchanger can also overheat because of poor ventilation of combustion gases, and this will require professionals to fix it.
The thermostat is miscalibrated
If your furnace stays on for long enough to start to warm the house but shuts down before it reaches your desired comfort level, the issue may be a miscalibrated thermostat. When the thermostat senses the wrong temperature indoors, it will shut off the furnace too early. Professionals can easily recalibrate the thermostat to remedy this.
The flame sensor is dirty
The flame sensor detects if the burners in the furnace have ignited. If the burners fail to ignite, the flame sensor will automatically shut off gas flow to the burners as a safety precaution; this stops unburned gas from flooding the combustion chamber. If the flame sensor becomes dirty, it may start to shut the gas off even if the flames ignite. Technicians can clean the sensor or replace it.
Gas flow issues
The burners may not be receiving enough natural gas to continue to burn. This can be due to stuck valves or blockage in the gas lines, or potentially even leaks. As with anything connected to the gas lines, you want professionals only to work on this. Shut off the furnace and call for assistance.
Faulty control board
The control board manages the order in which various parts of the furnace turn on and off. A faulty board can result in the burners turning off as soon as the blower fan comes on, as well as many other malfunctions. The board will need professional repairs or a replacement.
Oversized furnace
Did you just get this furnace before the winter? If so, the trouble may be that whoever installed it failed to properly size it for your home and put in one that’s too powerful. An oversized furnace will so rapidly raise the indoor temperature that the HVAC system will falsely determine it has completed the heating cycle and shut the furnace off. The only way to fix this problem is to replace the furnace with one that is accurately sized for your house. You can trust our professionals to see any furnace we install is the right size.
Call Crown Group Ohio for heating help—24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your Comfort Experts Since 1963.