Furnace Repair in Kankakee, IL
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Kankakee County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat puts real hours on your furnace
Kankakee County needs heat from October through May. That's eight months of the burner cycling on and off, night after night, with winter lows averaging 20°F from December through February. Every time it fires, the igniter and the flame sensor do their job again, and that many cycles wears on them faster than a mild climate ever would.
Most homes here heat with gas, so when the power goes out, the furnace stops even if the gas is still flowing. Illinois saw 16% of households lose power for 24 hours or more in 2024, and this county has logged 9 winter storms and 99 damaging wind events over the last ten years. A furnace that won't restart after the lights come back on is often just waiting on a call, not broken for good.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 20°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 77%
- 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 $140 a year off heating for a typical Kankakee County home.
Estimates for a typical Kankakee 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 license for HVAC work. Whether this job needs one comes down to whether Kankakee County or the town the house sits in has set up its own rule, since the state leaves that decision to them. Some places will have a license to check. Others will have nothing on file at all.
A furnace repair means someone is working on a gas connection, and that is the part that has to be done right. Where no local license applies, that is not the state's problem to catch. In Kankakee County, 77.1% of homes heat with gas, so this connection is the same one a furnace contractor here works on most of the time.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Make sure it's set to heat and the temperature is above room temperature, and check that it has power if it runs on batteries. If the thermostat looks fine, check your breaker panel. A tripped breaker will stop the furnace cold. Some furnaces also have a switch that looks like a light switch near the unit itself, often on the side of the cabinet, and it needs to be in the on position. If all of that checks out and the furnace still won't start, the igniter or a safety switch inside the unit may be at fault, and that calls for a contractor to look at it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- The most common reason is a dirty air filter. When the filter is clogged, the furnace can overheat and shut off its burners while the blower keeps running, so you feel cold air instead of warm. Check the filter first and replace it if it's gray or caked with dust. If the filter is clean and you're still getting cold air, the igniter or flame sensor may be failing, and a furnace this old with that kind of problem is worth having a contractor check before a Kankakee winter night drops toward 20 degrees.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- Most of the time this comes down to the thermocouple, the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to keep sending gas. When it wears out or gets coated in soot, it can't sense the flame properly and shuts the gas off, so the pilot goes out. A draft blowing across the pilot or a dirty pilot opening can also cause it. Relighting it yourself following the instructions on the furnace is fine, but if it keeps going out, the thermocouple likely needs replacing, and that's a job for a licensed contractor.