Your home’s furnace usually doesn’t have any trouble providing your household with the comfort it needs each winter. But now something isn’t working right, and the house feels colder, even though you’re setting the thermostat at the standard temperature you always do.
Your first instinct may be to push the thermostat up higher until you feel comfortable. This isn’t a good idea if you know the furnace isn’t doing its job as well. It may even make the problem worse, and you’re only making the furnace run longer. It still may not be able to meet your heating demands depending on what’s wrong with it.
Let’s look into that and see why your furnace is falling behind this winter:
The furnace has a clogged air filter
This is something to check first when you notice problems with the furnace. It’s easy for homeowners to forget, among all the other tasks they need to get done around the house, to regularly change the furnace filter (usually every one to three months). If the filter stays in place too long, it will become clogged, and this will restrict airflow through the furnace. Less air is heated, and air pressure drops, resulting in overall poor heating performance. Fortunately, it’s easy to correct: just put in a clean filter.
The thermostat is misreading the temperature
The trouble could be that the thermostat senses the house as being warmer than it is. Because of this miscalibration, the thermostat will shut off the heater earlier, before it reaches your desired temperature. Professionals will need to recalibrate the thermostat. Don’t keep raising the temperature setting, since that will result in money waste.
The furnace is incorrectly sized
If this is a new furnace, then the problem may be that it isn’t the right size to properly heat the home. If the furnace is undersized, it can run and run and run but it won’t be able to raise the house to the desired temperature. If it’s oversized, it will begin to short-cycle, which means shut down its heating cycle too early, which means it won’t run long enough to heat the house. The only solution to this problem is to replace the furnace—and hire our professionals for the job, since we’ll make sure the furnace is accurately sized.
The furnace is too old
Often, when a furnace begins having a hard time heating a home the way it used to, it’s simply because it’s worn down with age. The average gas furnace has a life expectancy between 15 to 20 years, and if your furnace is in this range, this decline in heating capacity may be the sign to call us for a replacement. If it’s over 20 years, a replacement should already be on your schedule! We’ll check the furnace and help you make the choice about whether to do repairs or to go ahead with a replacement.
We offer fast heating repair in Rockville, MD, and we’re available 24/7 to come to your assistance. We back up all our repairs with a 30-day guarantee.
Call on B&B Air Conditioning & Heating Service: We’re always there when you need us.