Furnace Repair in Indianapolis, IN
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Marion County will get in touch.
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Eight months of heat wears a furnace down
Your furnace works from October through May in Marion County, eight months of the year. On winter nights that average 23°F, it cycles on and off for hours at a stretch to keep up, and every cycle means the igniter has to fire again. That part is usually the first to fail. When it goes, the furnace won't light at all.
55.6% of homes here heat with gas, so a furnace that won't start means no heat until it's fixed. Power matters too. Marion County has seen 12 winter storms and 140 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and last year 17% of Indiana households lost power for a day or more. A gas furnace still needs electricity to run its blower and controls, so when the power goes, so does the heat.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 23°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 56%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 12 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $100 a year off heating for a typical Marion County home.
Estimates for a typical Marion 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.
Indiana has no state HVAC license, and it keeps no record of who can do this work. That is left to Marion County and the city of Indianapolis, so whether a contractor needs a local license before touching a furnace depends on where the house sits, not on anything the state tracks.
For a furnace repair, the gas connection is the part that matters most, since a bad one is what makes the job dangerous. With no state license behind it, whatever check happens on that connection here comes from the county or city, not from Indianapolis or Indiana. In Marion County, 55.6% of homes heat with gas, so that connection is not a small detail.
Sources: Indiana Department of Workforce Development · State of Indiana
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often the thermostat isn't calling for heat the way you think it is, or power isn't reaching the furnace. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has fresh batteries if it uses them. Next check the furnace switch, which looks like a regular light switch near the unit, and the breaker at your panel. If those are fine, the igniter may have failed or the flame sensor may be dirty, and that's a job for a contractor to check safely.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Before the burners light, your furnace blows a few seconds of cool air while it purges the line and warms up, so brief cold air is normal. If it never warms up after that, the igniter may not be lighting the burners at all, or the flame sensor may be shutting the burners off right after they start. A clogged filter can also starve the burners of the airflow they need to run properly. If the blower runs constantly with no warm air at any point, a contractor will need to check the ignition system directly.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple, the small sensor that tells the gas valve a flame is present, has worn out or is out of position. When it can't sense the pilot flame, it shuts the gas valve as a safety measure even though the pilot is lit. A draft blowing out the pilot is another common cause, and worth checking before anything else. If the thermocouple is the problem, it needs to be replaced by a contractor, since it can't be adjusted back into working order.