Furnace Repair in Springfield, IL
Furnaces here run from October through April. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Sangamon County will get in touch.
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Seven months of heat and 22 degree nights wear a furnace down
Springfield needs heat from October through April, seven months of the year. On winter nights averaging 22°F, the furnace is not cycling on and off once in a while. It is running long and often, and the burner is lighting again and again to keep up. That kind of use wears on the igniter and the flame sensor faster than a mild winter would.
Most homes here heat with gas, so when the furnace stops, there is no backup pulling the load. Sangamon County has seen 198 damaging wind events and 7 winter storms over the past ten years, and 16% of Illinois households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024. A furnace that will not start after an outage, or one that keeps shutting off partway through the night, is telling you something got knocked loose or worn out during the exact stretch of winter you need it most.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 22°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 73%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 7 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $120 a year off heating for a typical Sangamon County home.
Estimates for a typical Sangamon 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.
That means whether a furnace repair contractor needs a local license depends on the city or township the house sits in, not on any state list. Springfield and the other municipalities in Sangamon County set their own rules for who can do this work, so what applies to one address in the county may not apply to another a few miles away.
Gas furnace repair is the kind of work where the connection matters more than the paperwork. A cracked heat exchanger or a bad gas line joint is the dangerous part of the job, and with no state license behind the work, whether that connection gets checked depends on whatever rule the local municipality has, if it has one at all. In Sangamon County, 73.2% of homes heat with gas, which is the piece worth knowing about here.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often it is the thermostat, the power, or the gas supply. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has fresh batteries if it uses them. Check the switch that looks like a light switch near the furnace, the one on the unit itself, since it has to be on. If those are fine, the igniter or a safety switch inside the furnace may be at fault, and that is a job for a contractor to open the unit and test.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- If the air is cold and not just cool, the burners likely aren't lighting even though the blower is running. That points to the igniter, the flame sensor, or the gas valve not doing its job. Sometimes it is simpler. The thermostat fan is set to "on" instead of "auto", which runs the blower even between heating cycles. If the fan setting is right and the air still isn't warming, a contractor needs to check what's stopping the burners from lighting.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple has worn out and can no longer sense that the pilot is lit, so it shuts the gas valve off. A draft blowing out the flame is another common cause, so check if the pilot access door is sealing properly. Dirt or soot on the pilot opening can also block the flame. If relighting it doesn't hold, the thermocouple likely needs to be replaced, and that's a straightforward fix for a contractor.