When temperatures drop, you rely on your furnace to keep your household safe and warm until the chill passes. While a strange noise or unusual smell from your unit may feel like something you can overlook, these could be signs of serious trouble. Without repair, furnace odor issues could leave your household in the cold or expose you to serious health and safety risks. Explore the top signs it’s time to call for emergency furnace repair below and learn the risks of putting off these necessary fixes.
What Qualifies as a Furnace Emergency?
For some furnace problems, it’s okay to wait until your next scheduled service to address the issue. That’s said, other problems require immediate attention. Ignoring unusual smells, loud noises, or venting and flue issues puts you and your family at risk of serious health and safety concerns. You could freeze on the coldest night of the year, suffer significant property damage, or expose your household to harmful gas and carbon monoxide leaks.
Top Warning Signs You Need Emergency Furnace Repair
Knowing the warning signs that your furnace requires immediate repair by a trusted HVAC company helps you catch the issue quickly, keeping your home and family safe. From inadequate heating to unusual smells, discover the top indicators that it’s time to call for professional help below.
1. Your Furnace Isn’t Producing Heat
If you turn on your furnace to warm up your home on a chilly winter day but discover cold or no airflow coming through your vents, there’s likely a serious problem with one of its components. A malfunctioning pilot light, thermostat failure, or fuel supply problem are common culprits that cause your furnace to blow cold air or stop working altogether. Ignoring this issue can leave you stuck with no heat, leaving your household in an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation.
2. Your Furnace is Making Loud or Unusual Noises
While it’s not uncommon for your furnace to make a slight hum while in use, you should never hear loud banging, rattling, grinding, or screeching sounds. If you start noticing these strange noises coming from your furnace, there’s likely a loose or broken component that requires immediate attention. Without emergency heating repair, these problems often lead to severe damage and costly future issues.
3. You Smell Gas or Something Burning
If you notice a gas, rotten egg, or burning smell coming from your furnace, it’s time to act fast. Burning smells indicate overheating components or electrical malfunction, which could cause serious internal damage and even spark a fire.
A gas or rotten egg smell means you are dealing with a potential gas leak, which could put you and your family in an even more dangerous situation. Immediately turn off your furnace, leave your home, and contact emergency services.
4. Your Furnace Keeps Shutting Off or Cycling Frequently
Your furnace should only turn off after your home reaches the set temperature. If you notice it turning on and off in short bursts without fully heating your home, your furnace is short cycling. You may be dealing with anything from a clogged filter or faulty sensor to an overheating system. Short cycling makes your home uncomfortably cold and can lead to more significant and more expensive problems down the line.
5. The Carbon Monoxide Alarm is Going Off
If you hear your carbon monoxide detector beeping, leave your home immediately. Carbon monoxide leaks are extremely dangerous, and exposure can lead to serious health problems and even be fatal. Watch out for common symptoms, including dizziness, headaches, nausea, and confusion. Immediately get everyone out of the house and contact emergency services to evaluate the situation.
Risks of Ignoring Furnace Emergencies
While it may be tempting to delay repairs, furnace emergencies are something you should never ignore. Putting off repairs can lead to serious health and safety risks and result in costly damage to your HVAC system. If you don’t address your furnace problems immediately, you may face:
- Safety hazards: Malfunctions such as gas leaks and carbon monoxide exposure put your household at risk of fires and serious health hazards.
- Frozen pipes: Without proper heating, freezing temperatures can cause your pipes to freeze and even burst, resulting in extensive water damage and costly repairs.
- Extensive repairs: Even minor problems put increased stress on your furnace, causing it to work harder than necessary. Over time, more components begin to break down, requiring extensive repairs or a complete system replacement.
What to Do If Your Furnace Stops Working
If you wake up on a chilly winter day to find your furnace unresponsive, don’t panic. While the above issues require you to take immediate action, this might just be a simple fix that doesn’t require the help of professionals. Try these troubleshooting steps before calling for emergency service:
- Check the thermostat: Make sure the thermostat is on the ‘heat’ setting and the temperature is high enough to trigger the furnace to turn on.
- Inspect the circuit breaker: Check if a tripped breaker has shut off power to the furnace.
- Replace the air filter: A clogged or dirty filter can restrict airflow. Replace it with a fresh filter and see if that helps.
- Look for pilot light issues: Check that the pilot light is on and the right color. If it’s out, try relighting it according to manufacturer instructions.
If these troubleshooting steps still don’t prompt your furnace to turn on, call for professional help. They’ll be able to identify the underlying culprit and quickly repair it to restore your home to a cozy temperature. If you’re constantly dealing with furnace repairs, they can recommend alternative heating systems for more consistent comfort.
Call QRC for Professional Emergency Furnace Repairs in NC!
When your furnace starts to malfunction, don’t spend hours searching for North Carolina HVAC companies near you. Contact the team at QRC for 24/7 furnace repairs! Our technicians are available around the clock to handle any furnace job that comes our way. Whether your system suddenly stops working on the coldest night of the year or you’re noticing strange smells circulating around the house, you can count on our team to be there fast.
Don’t let furnace issues put your family at risk. Call (336) 560-9457 to schedule emergency furnace repair in Winston-Salem today!