Furnace Troubleshooting: What to Do Before Calling for Furnace Repair

October 07, 2015

The changing weather in Auburn can mean a number of things, from the changing color of leaves to flipping on your furnace for the season. Of course, whole home comfort is your year-round goal, but sometimes our heating and cooling equipment doesn’t feel like cooperating. That doesn’t mean that you’re automatically destined for furnace repair though.

When your furnace quits working or you notice it behaving oddly, there are four things you can check on before calling in the experts at Forster Heating for furnace repair. Here are a few troubleshooting tips to try before giving us a ring. 

1) Check your thermostat

This is one of the most basic checks that homeowners can do on their own, and may solve the concern more than they’d like to admit. Ensure your thermostat is: 

  • Set to “heat”
  • Turned up higher than the room temperature
  • Working with a fresh battery

2) Look at the furnace filter 

Dirty filters can cause furnaces to act erratically, making them shut down without notice and without making a noise. Furnace filters have been the cause for a lot of furnace repair calls in the past, but there’s no reason to pick up the phone when you can swap it out yourself. Not to mention that a dirty furnace filter lowers your system’s efficiency and inhibits airflow.

3) Find and inspect your furnace’s switches

The majority of the time, switches to your furnace are found:

  • Around the furnace and normally look like your everyday light switch.
  • At your circuit breaker panel. Find the breaker that controls your furnace and determine if it is in the middle position or the Off position. If it is, cycle the breaker to Off and then flip it back to the On position. 

4) Open all of your vents

A routine mistake among homeowners is to close vents in unused rooms, but this may actually lead to a need for furnace repair. Closing these vents may potentially cause your system to be less efficient and stop working because of added airflow pressure.

If you’ve completed these four troubleshooting tips and still aren’t having any luck getting your system back operating, it’s probably time to give us a call. The pros at Forster Heating in Auburn are here to make sure all of your furnace repair needs are met, so give us a call at 530-885-8081.