Furnace Troubleshooting: What to Do Before Calling for Furnace Repair

October 07, 2015

The fluctuating weather in Dresden can mean a number of things, from the changing color of leaves to flipping on your furnace for the cooler months. Of course, complete 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 predestined for furnace repair though.

When your furnace quits working or you notice it operating weirdly, there are a few things you can check on before calling in the pros at McFadden Heating & Cooling for furnace repair. Here are four troubleshooting tips to try before giving us a call. 

1) Check your thermostat

This is one of the easiest checks that homeowners can do on their own, and could solve the concern more than they’d like to admit. Be sure your thermostat is: 

  • Set to “heat”
  • Turned up higher than the room temperature
  • Using a new 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 peep. 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 decreases your system’s efficiency and harms airflow.

3) Find and inspect your furnace’s switches

Most of the time, switches to your furnace are found:

  • Near the furnace and typically look like your stereotypical light switch.
  • At your circuit breaker panel. Find the breaker that controls your furnace and figure out 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 common blunder among homeowners is to close vents in unoccupied rooms, but this might actually lead to a need for furnace repair. Closing these vents may potentially cause your system to be less efficient and turn off because of added airflow pressure.

If you’ve completed these four troubleshooting tips and still aren’t having any luck getting your system back up and running, it’s probably time to give us a call. The team at McFadden Heating & Cooling in Dresden are here to be sure all of your furnace repair needs are met, so give us a call at 1-866-781-0111.