5 Signs Your Furnace Isn’t Working Properly

A furnace that doesn’t work properly can make your home colder than you want, make loud noises that disturb your quality of life, and raise your energy bills. Besides being inconvenient, a damaged gas furnace could even be a danger to your health due to gas leaks. To ensure your furnace is running correctly, learn more about the five main signs your heating system isn’t working properly and what you can do to fix them.

1. Your Home Is Cold

One of the most obvious signs you have an issue with your furnace is if your home won’t heat up. While your thermostat might be at fault, you could also have damaged ductwork, an older, inefficient furnace, or blocked vents. Due to the many potential culprits, you’ll want to hire a professional to inspect your heating system to find the reason behind why your home is colder than you want.

2. Your Furnace Makes Strange Noises

While furnaces aren’t silent and will usually produce a humming sound, you’ll want to be on the lookout for strange noises. If you’ve noticed your furnace makes strange noises, such as scraping, screeching, popping, rattling, clanking, or rumbling, your furnace likely needs a repair and is in danger of shutting down entirely. As a result, you’ll want to have it inspected immediately to find the source of the sounds.

3. You Smell Gas in Your Home

Besides the importance of paying attention to what you can hear, it’s even more important to pay attention to your home’s smell when you have a gas furnace. If you’ve noticed that your gas furnace won’t turn on and there’s an odd smell in your home, your furnace could be failing or have a cracked line, spreading toxic gas into your home. Since gas leaks can be life-threatening, you should immediately leave your home and contact an HVAC technician whenever you smell gas odors in your home. 

4. Your Furnace Never Shuts Off

Throughout the day, your furnace should run until it reaches the temperature you’ve set your thermostat to, and then it should shut off until your home needs it again. If your furnace never turns off, it likely has something wrong with it that’s causing it to work inefficiently. Additionally, a constantly running furnace will put greater stress on its parts, causing it to require more repairs. If you haven’t set your furnace to always run, but it still never shuts off, you’ll need an inspection.

5. You’re Paying Higher Electricity or Gas Bills

When you’ve noticed your energy or gas bills are spiking and you haven’t had any rate increases that would explain it, you could have an issue with your furnace. When electric and gas furnaces age and start to break down, they’ll begin to use energy less efficiently while they attempt to heat your home. If your energy bills skyrocket whenever you switch on your heating system, it’s time for a furnace inspection and potentially a full replacement. 

What to Do If Your Furnace Is Showing Signs It Isn’t Working Properly

If you’ve noticed any of the above warning signs, the first step you should take is to have an HVAC professional perform an inspection. After they inspect your furnace, they should be able to tell you what’s at fault and provide advice on the next steps.

To prevent these issues in the future, you’ll also want to hire HVAC professionals to regularly perform furnace maintenance and inspections before you ever notice a problem. Since routine furnace maintenance can help you catch issues early and take action on them before they become bigger problems, it can keep your furnace performing at its best for the longest time possible.

Choose Bonney for Heater Repair Services in Sacramento

Whether you need furnace tune-up services or a full heater repair, Bonney can help. When you reach out to us, our team will begin by conducting a full heating system check to identify any potential issues and provide you with possible solutions. If they find something wrong with your furnace, they’ll perform heater repair services to get your system up and running again. When your furnace is irreparable or unable to give you adequate heating, our team can even replace your old furnace with a new one.

Find out more about our heating services today. If you have any questions or want to schedule a service appointment, please contact us.