Winters in New England can be brutal and your heat is an essential part of your home. If you feel like your heat isn’t turning on, and your home is starting to get colder, your first reaction is probably to panic. If you are using a gas pump or a heating furnace we have some simple things you can do to see if you can get your heat on and working before you get it checked by a professional.
Common Reasons Why Your Heat Isn’t Working
- Lack of maintenance. This is the most common reason the heat won’t turn on. Most times, it’s just too dirty. If your motor is too dirty, it can lead to the equipment failing because the heat needs cool air to move across it to keep the heater from overheating. Dirty air filters also restrict the air from going through them.
- Improper design or installation. Sometimes your problem isn’t your heater. It just wasn’t installed correctly and is now failing. If this is the case and your contractor cut corners then the only solution would be to fix what was installed correctly otherwise this could be a problem that keeps occurring.
- Your heater exchanger is cracked. A cracker heater exchange won’t always lead to your heat not turning on right away – but it will eventually. A cracked
heater exchanger is bad because carbon monoxide is inside them, which can make you sick or in severe cases, it can be fatal. - There isn’t power. There may be a problem where the heater isn’t receiving power, maybe from an outage or the line is disrupted. You can try to reset your circuit breaker to reset.
- Pilot light went out. This can happen, and if it does, it’s a fairly easy fix. Sometimes you can try to turn off and on the pilot light to see if that reignites the flame.
- Sometimes it’s as simple as checking to make sure that the
thermosat is set to “heat,” and in the panic, you forgot to check that.
Heat Still Won’t Turn On?
If you are in the Boston area and are having problems with your heater, you can call Elite Plumbing & Heating. We are happy to come out to your home to help you diagnose the problem to make sure that your home or office stays warm. We offer 24/7 emergency services, to schedule an appointment call us at (781) 438-2997 or contact us online via our website. There’s no reason you should be in a cold home or office.