Furnace Repair in Belleville, IL
Furnaces here run from October through April. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers St. Clair County will get in touch.
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Seven months of cold puts real hours on your furnace
From October through April your furnace is the thing standing between your house and 26 degree nights. That is seven months of the burner cycling on and off, night after night, to hold the temperature. Each cycle puts wear on the igniter and the parts that start the burner. When one of them finally gives out, it usually happens on a cold night, not a mild one, because that is when the furnace is working hardest.
St. Clair County has seen 9 winter storms and 84 damaging wind events over the past ten years. Storms like that knock out power, and across Illinois 16% of households went at least a day without it in 2024. A gas furnace, and most homes here heat with gas, still needs electricity to run the blower and controls. When the power comes back, the furnace should start up on its own. If it does not, that points to a problem worth having a contractor look at.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 26°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 61%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 9 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $100 a year off heating for a typical St. Clair County home.
Estimates for a typical St. Clair County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Illinois fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed and the heat exchanger is sound.
Replacement makes sense when the heat exchanger is cracked or the furnace keeps needing parts.
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
Illinois has no state HVAC license. Whatever rule applies in St. Clair County comes from the city or township where the house sits, not from the state. Some local governments require a license for this kind of work, others don't regulate it at all, and there's no state record either way that says a contractor passed a test or has one on file. Whether anything stands behind the person doing the repair depends on the address the furnace is at.
For a furnace repair, the gas connection is the part that matters most. A loose or wrong fitting is what makes the job dangerous, not the parts that just wear out. In St. Clair County, 60.6% of homes heat with gas, so this is the case for most houses here. Nothing at the state level checks that connection. Whatever check exists comes from wherever the local rule in this part of the county places it, and where there is no local rule, there is no check at all.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often the thermostat isn't calling for heat the way you think it is, or the furnace isn't getting power. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has fresh batteries if it uses them. Next check the furnace switch, the one that looks like a light switch near the unit, and the breaker for it. If those are fine, the igniter or the flame sensor may have failed, and that's a job for a contractor to test and replace.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Give it a few minutes. A furnace runs the blower for a short time before the burners kick in, so air can feel cool at first. If it stays cold the whole cycle, the igniter may not be lighting the burners, or the gas valve isn't opening. Either one keeps the blower running without any heat behind it, and both need a contractor to check.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A pilot that won't stay lit usually points to the thermocouple, the small rod that sits in the flame and tells the gas valve the pilot is on. When it wears out or sits out of position, the valve shuts the gas off even though the pilot was burning fine. Wind or a draft from a vent nearby can also blow it out. If relighting it doesn't hold, the thermocouple needs to be replaced.