Furnace Troubleshooting: What to Do Before Calling for Furnace Repair

October 07, 2015

The shifting weather in Columbus can mean a host of things, from the changing color of leaves to turning on your furnace for the colder months. Of course, complete home comfort is your year-round goal, but sometimes our heating and cooling equipment doesn’t feel like helping us out. That doesn’t mean that you’re automatically destined for furnace repair though.

When your furnace fails to work or you notice it behaving oddly, there are a few things you can check on before calling in the pros at Wolfe & Sons Heating and Cooling for furnace repair. Here are a couple troubleshooting tips to try before giving us a call. 

1) Check your thermostat

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

  • Set to “heat”
  • Set higher than the room temperature
  • Working with a new battery

2) Look at the furnace filter 

Dirty filters can cause furnaces to act weirdly, making them shut down without notice and without making a sound. Furnace filters have been the cause for quite a few 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

Nearly all of the time, switches to your furnace are found:

  • Close to the furnace and typically look like your stereotypical light switch.
  • At your circuit breaker panel. Pinpoint 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 re-set it back to the On position. 

4) Open all of your vents

A routine blunder among homeowners is to close vents in vacant rooms, but this could actually lead to a need for furnace repair. Closing these vents can potentially cause your system to be less efficient and shut down because of added airflow pressure.

If you’ve done 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 ring. The team at Wolfe & Sons Heating and Cooling in Columbus are here to ensure all of your furnace repair needs are met, so give us a call at 614-451-0846.