Furnace Repair in Peoria, IL
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Peoria County will get in touch.
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Eight months of Peoria County winter takes its toll
Your furnace works from October through May here, eight months out of the year. On winter nights that average 20°F, it cycles on and off for hours at a stretch to hold the house steady. Each start puts a load on the igniter and the flame sensor, and over enough winters one of them gives out.
Most furnaces in Peoria County run on gas, and a gas furnace still needs power for the blower and controls even though the flame doesn't. When storms come through, the power sometimes doesn't. Peoria County has seen 12 winter storms and 147 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across Illinois last year, 16% of households lost power for at least a day. A furnace that won't start after an outage often just needs its control board reset.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 20°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 68%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 12 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 Peoria County home.
Estimates for a typical Peoria 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 contractors. The rule is left to cities and towns, so whether a furnace repair needs a license depends on whether the house sits inside a city that requires one or out in unincorporated Peoria County, where there may be no such rule at all. There is no state test and no state record to check either way. What exists, if anything, is whatever the local jurisdiction set up on its own.
A furnace repair often means working on or near a gas connection, and a bad connection is the dangerous part of the job. Where a city licenses contractors, that license is what stands behind the work. Where no city rule applies, nothing at the state level checks that connection at all. In Peoria County, 68.1% of homes heat with gas, which is exactly why that connection is the part worth getting right.
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 set above room temperature, then check that the furnace switch, the one that looks like a light switch near the unit, is on. If the thermostat looks dead, check the furnace's circuit breaker. Furnaces built in the last few decades also have a flame sensor and an igniter, and either one failing will stop the furnace from starting even though power is reaching it. If the power is on and the thermostat is calling for heat but nothing happens, a contractor needs to look at it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most of the time this means the blower is running but the burners haven't lit. That points to an ignition problem, a dirty flame sensor, or the gas valve not opening. It can also mean the furnace is in its startup cycle, where the blower runs briefly before the burners fire, so a few seconds of cool air isn't unusual. If the air stays cold and never warms up, a contractor needs to check the ignition system and the gas supply to the unit.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually comes down to the thermocouple, the small sensor that tells the gas valve a flame is present. If it's worn out or out of position, it shuts the gas off even when the pilot is lit. A draft blowing across the pilot, or a dirty pilot opening, can also blow it out or keep it from lighting cleanly. If you've relit it and it goes out again, the thermocouple is the most likely reason, and a contractor can test and replace it.