Furnace & Heat Pump Service in Gilbert, AZ

How heating fails where winter is short

A furnace here might run six or eight weeks a year. The rest of the time it sits in an attic that tops 140 degrees in summer, collecting dust. So what usually gets them is sitting, not wear.

When the thermostat finally calls for heat, the flame sensor is coated, the igniter has cracked or the pressure switch won't close. The furnace tries a few times, locks out, and the house stays cold. Those are part-level repairs. They don't mean the furnace is finished.

Heat pumps fail differently because they never get a season off. The compressor, capacitor and fan motor that ran all summer do the heating too. Add a reversing valve that flips the unit between modes and a defrost control for frosty mornings, and there are two more parts that can stick.

Before you call about the heat

Make sure the thermostat is in Heat with the set point above room temperature. Then look at the filter. A plugged one makes a furnace overheat until its limit switch shuts the burners off, and it'll repeat that all night.

On a gas furnace, check that the gas valve at the unit is open and the service switch is on. It looks like a light switch, usually mounted in the attic near the furnace, and it gets bumped. On a heat pump, check both breakers. There's one for the outdoor unit and one for the air handler.

If you smell gas, skip all of that. Get everyone outside and call the gas company or 911 from there. A carbon monoxide alarm gets the same response.

Heat pump or gas furnace

Where a cold night means the 30s, a heat pump makes a lot of sense. It moves heat instead of making it, so it uses far less electricity than electric strip heat, and it's the same equipment that cools the house.

A gas furnace puts out hotter air at the vents, and some people like how that feels. If your house already has gas and the furnace is in decent shape, there's no reason to tear it out. The time to decide is when the AC is due, since the outdoor unit and indoor coil get replaced as a matched set anyway.

We'll quote a new system at no charge. Day & Night and Ruud are the brands we deal in, and we can order any other.

Thermostats and no-heat calls

A fair number of no-heat calls end at the wall. A heat pump needs a thermostat configured for a heat pump, with the reversing valve wire on the right terminal. Get that wrong and the unit cools when you ask for heat. It's the reason a smart thermostat install starts with the wiring, not the app.

Furnaces tend to quit at night. A night call costs the same as a daytime one.