Furnace Repair in Carmel, IN
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Hamilton County will get in touch.
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Eight months of heat puts real wear on a furnace
Carmel needs heat from October through May. That is eight months of the burner cycling on and off, night after night, to keep up with winter lows that average 22°F. Every one of those cycles asks the igniter to light the burner and the blower to push the warm air through the house.
Parts that switch on and off that often are the ones that fail first. An igniter that has fired thousands of times gets weak and stops lighting the burner at all. A blower motor under that kind of load can start making noise or quit moving air the way it should. When either happens, you will notice the house not warming up, or the furnace running but never quite catching up to the thermostat.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 22°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 61%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 11 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $110 a year off heating for a typical Hamilton County home.
Estimates for a typical Hamilton County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Indiana fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed and the heat exchanger is sound.
Replacement makes sense when the heat exchanger is cracked or the furnace keeps needing parts.
In Indiana, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the counties and cities.
Since Indiana leaves this to the counties, whether Hamilton County licenses HVAC contractors is a question about this address, not the state. Some counties keep a record of who is licensed to do this work. Others keep no such record, and here the rule simply does not exist unless the county has put one in place.
On a furnace repair, the part that can hurt someone is the gas connection, and that is true wherever the furnace sits. Where a county checks gas work, that check is what stands in for a license. About 6 in 10 homes in Hamilton County heat with gas, so a bad connection is not a rare situation here.
Sources: Indiana Department of Workforce Development · State of Indiana
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to heat and the setting is above room temperature, and swap the batteries if it uses them. If that's not it, check the breaker and the furnace switch, which looks like a light switch near the unit. When none of that works, the igniter, the flame sensor, or the control board may have failed, and that's a job for a contractor to diagnose.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often the furnace is just starting a cycle and the air hasn't warmed up yet, so give it a few minutes before you worry. If cold air keeps coming, check the air filter. A filter clogged enough can make the furnace shut its burners off while the fan keeps running, and you'll feel room-temperature or cold air the whole time. A furnace that won't fire at all needs a contractor to look at the igniter or the gas valve.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple has worn out. It's the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to stay open, and once it fails the valve shuts the gas off as soon as you let go of the button. A draft blowing out the pilot is possible too, so check that the panel is seated and nothing is blocking the vent. If relighting it keeps ending the same way, a contractor will need to replace the thermocouple.