When something goes wrong with your heating system, your first instinct should be to call for professional repairs. Well, at least it should be most of the time. However, you’d be pretty amazed at the number of times that a “serious” heating problem turned out to be something very easily fixed.
Before you go to the trouble of actually calling a technician to come to your home, check up on a couple of basic things first. It’s likely that you’ll still need professional repairs, but there’s no harm in trying these things first.
Check the Thermostat
Everyone knows about the “thermostat wars” that tend to take place when more than one person is sharing a single thermostat. Considering the differences between rooms in terms of insulation, as well as personal temperature preferences, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that one person may occasionally change the thermostat settings without informing the other. Before you dial the number for your HVAC company, check to make sure that the real source of the problem isn’t simply a misconfigured thermostat.
Check the Circuit Breaker
We’ve all had that moment where all the lights in the house have gone out, thanks to the circuit breaker tripping. Sometimes, though, one of the breakers can trip without it becoming immediately apparent that that is what happened. A lot of people call for repairs because their heating systems are not turning on, only to find that they just needed to reset the circuit breaker.
Now, it’s important to remember that breakers don’t trip for no reason. Chances are good that if your heating system caused the circuit breaker to trip, there’s some sort of electrical problem with the heating system. If you reset the circuit breaker and everything goes back to normal, good. If the breaker keeps tripping, though, that’s an indication that something more serious is going on. You’ll need to call a professional in that case.
(In Some Cases) Check the Pilot Light
Modern heating systems are moving away from standing pilot lights, but there are still many millions of them that use this method of starting up. The pilot light is a small gas flame that ignites the burner assembly to start a gas furnace. If you know that your heating system uses a standing pilot light, check and make sure that it’s still burning. If not, re-light it and see if that fixes the problem. If the pilot light doesn’t light, or it keeps blowing out, you should have a professional look at it to make sure everything is all right.
Again, it should be understood that you will probably need professional repair services most of the time that a problem crops up. If you want to keep your system in ideal condition, it’s a wise idea to have a professional conduct maintenance on it at least once a year anyway. Otherwise, ask for an evaluation if you suspect that something might be malfunctioning.
Sunset Air offers a full range of heating system repair services in Olympia, WA. Contact us today for an appointment.
