Furnace Repair in Champaign, IL
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Champaign County will get in touch.
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Eight months of winter wears on a furnace
Your furnace works from October through May here, close to eight months a year. On nights that average 21°F, it runs long stretches to keep up, and the burner cycles on and off again and again to hold the temperature. Every start puts a little more wear on the igniter and the parts that control the flame.
Champaign County has seen 223 damaging wind events and 11 winter storms over the past ten years, and outages follow storms like these. Across Illinois, 16% of households lost power for at least a day in 2024. When the power drops on a cold night, a gas furnace will not restart on its own once it comes back, and you will notice the house has stayed cold.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 21°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 54%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 11 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $130 a year off heating for a typical Champaign County home.
Estimates for a typical Champaign 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 test or record for HVAC contractors. What applies to your furnace depends on whether the city or town where the house sits has its own licensing rule, since the state left that decision to local governments. Where no such rule reaches the address, there is no license standing behind the person you hire, state or local.
A furnace repair means working on a gas line and a combustion system, and the connection is the part that has to be right. In Champaign County, 54.2% of homes heat with gas, so this is a repair many houses here will need at some point. Whether anyone checks that gas connection after the repair depends on the same local rule, not on anything Illinois requires statewide.
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 power isn't reaching the furnace. 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 in your panel. 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?
- If air is moving but it's not warm, the furnace may be running its fan without the burners lighting. That points to an ignition problem or a safety switch shutting the burners down after they try to light. It can also mean the filter is clogged enough that the furnace is overheating and cutting the heat to protect itself. With lows around 21°F here, don't wait long on this one. If changing the filter doesn't fix it, have a contractor check the ignition system and the limit switch.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple isn't sensing the flame and is shutting the gas off as a safety measure. It can also happen if the pilot orifice is dirty or if a draft in the area is blowing the flame out. A standing pilot doesn't use electricity, so a power outage isn't the cause here. Relighting it yourself is fine to try once, following the instructions on the furnace, but if it goes out again the thermocouple likely needs replacing.