HVAC Repair in Lafayette, IN
Homes here need heat from October through May and cooling from June through August. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Tippecanoe County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eleven months of work a year on your system
Your furnace runs from October through May here, and your air conditioner takes over in June through August. That leaves your system idle about one month a year. Most of it is spent working.
Winter nights averaging 21°F mean the burner is cycling on and off for hours at a stretch, and every ignition puts wear on the igniter and the flame sensor. Summer afternoons near 83°F push the compressor and its capacitor hard on the days you need cooling most. Tippecanoe County has also logged 83 damaging wind events and 10 winter storms over the past ten years, and either can knock out power to the outdoor unit or the furnace's control board. Most systems restart on their own once power is back, but a board that took a surge sometimes will not.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 3 months
- June through August, it cools
- 21°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 83°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace and air conditioner would cut about $120 a year off heating and cooling for a typical Tippecanoe County home.
Estimates for a typical Tippecanoe 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.
Replacement makes sense when the furnace's heat exchanger is cracked, the air conditioner's compressor has failed, or repairs keep coming.
In Indiana, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the counties and cities.
Tippecanoe County or the local city government decides what a heating and cooling contractor needs before working on a home here, not the state. Indiana never tested this contractor or put them on a state list. Whatever rule applies came from wherever the house sits, and that rule may look nothing like the one a few miles down the road.
Because there is no state license behind this repair, nothing here is naming a state credential for the work. If gas line work is part of the repair, a bad connection is the dangerous part of the job, and it would be the local building office, not the state, that has any say over inspecting it. Whether that inspection happens depends on what Tippecanoe County or the city requires for this kind of repair.
Sources: Indiana Department of Workforce Development · State of Indiana
- Why is my heat not working?
- Start with the thermostat. Make sure it is set to heat and set a few degrees above room temperature, and check that the display is lit. If the display is blank, look at your breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will kill power to the furnace before anything else does. If the thermostat looks fine and the furnace still will not fire, the igniter or the flame sensor is often the reason, and those need a contractor to check. With nights here averaging 21°F in the winter, a furnace that will not start is worth getting looked at the same day.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- Check your air filter first. A filter clogged with dust blocks airflow across the coil, and when that happens the coil can ice over and stop cooling the air even though the blower keeps running. Turn the system off for a few hours to let any ice melt, then replace the filter and try again. If the air still is not cold once the ice has had time to clear, the refrigerant charge or the compressor may be the issue, and that calls for a contractor with gauges to check it.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Check the thermostat settings and batteries first, since a dead battery or a setting bumped to the wrong mode causes more no-heat and no-cool calls than people expect. Next check your breaker panel for anything tripped. Look at the air filter and replace it if it is visibly dirty, since restricted airflow is behind a lot of the icing and overheating problems people call about. If the system still is not working after those three checks, a contractor will need to diagnose it further.