HVAC Repair in Plainfield, 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 Hendricks County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eleven months of work a year
Your furnace and your air conditioner both earn their keep here. Heat runs October through May, cooling picks up in June and holds through August, so there's really just one month when neither one has to work. On the nights that average 22°F, the burner is cycling on and off for hours, and every start puts a little more wear on the igniter. Enough of those and it stops lighting the burner at all, and the house goes cold.
Summer asks something different of the system. Afternoons averaging 82°F mean the compressor runs long stretches to keep up, and that kind of steady load is what wears down a capacitor or strains a weak connection. 55.1% of homes here heat with gas, so when that side of the system falters, there's no backup keeping the house warm while it waits on a repair.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 3 months
- June through August, it cools
- 22°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 82°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace and air conditioner would cut about $130 a year off heating and cooling for a typical Hendricks County home.
Estimates for a typical Hendricks 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.
Hendricks County sets its own rule for who can do HVAC work, and that rule is not the same one the next county over uses. Indiana never built a state license behind this trade, so there is no state exam, no state number, and no state record to check. Whether a contractor needs a local license to repair your system depends on whether your address falls under a county or city that requires one.
So the protection on this job comes from somewhere other than a license. A repair on a heating and cooling system can involve the gas line, and that is the part that can hurt someone if it is done wrong. Indiana has not put a state license behind that work here. What stands behind it instead is whatever rule Hendricks County or its cities have set for this trade, since the state left that decision to them.
Sources: Indiana Department of Workforce Development · State of Indiana
- Why is my heat not working?
- Start with the thermostat and the switch on the furnace itself, a lot of no-heat calls come down to one of those two. Check that the thermostat is set to heat and a few degrees above room temperature, and check that the furnace switch, it looks like a light switch, is on. If those are fine, look at the breaker and the filter, a filter clogged enough restricts airflow and can shut the furnace down on purpose. With winter lows here averaging 22°F, a furnace that will not start needs a contractor out the same day, not something to wait on.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- If air is moving but it is not cold, the filter is the first thing to check. A filter packed with dust starves the coil of airflow, and a coil that cannot get enough air across it will ice up and stop cooling altogether. Look at the outdoor unit too, if the coil or the fan is covered in debris the system cannot move heat out of the house. If the filter is clean and the outdoor unit is clear and you still have warm air, the system likely needs a contractor to check the refrigerant charge.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Check the thermostat first, the setting, the batteries, and whether the display is even lit. Check the breaker for the furnace or the outdoor unit, a tripped breaker will stop either one cold. Check the filter, a filter that has not been changed in a while can cause both a furnace and an air conditioner to underperform or shut off. If the system still is not working after that, a contractor will need to look at it, and telling them what you already checked saves time on the visit.