HVAC Repair in Champaign, IL
Homes here need heat from October through May and cooling from June through September. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Champaign County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Champaign asks a lot of your system, in both directions
Your furnace carries the house from October through May, eight months in most years. On the nights that average 21°F in December through February, it runs long and often, and every cycle puts wear on the igniter and the blower motor. When one of those parts finally gives out, it tends to happen on the coldest night, not the mildest one.
Come June, the same system switches jobs, and your air conditioner takes over through September, with afternoons that average 84°F. That is a shorter season, but the heat is steady and the unit runs hard through it. Champaign County has also seen 223 damaging wind events and 11 winter storms over the past ten years, and 16% of Illinois households went at least a day without power in 2024. A furnace or AC will usually restart on its own once power is back, but the outage and whatever caused it can be what pushes a weak part past the point of working at all.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 4 months
- June through September, it cools
- 21°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 84°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace and air conditioner would cut about $150 a year off heating and cooling 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.
Replacement makes sense when the furnace's heat exchanger is cracked, the air conditioner's compressor has failed, or repairs keep coming.
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
Champaign County does not license HVAC contractors, and neither does the state. Whether a contractor needs a license for this repair depends on the town, Champaign, Urbana, or wherever the house sits, and what that town has decided to require, if anything.
So for a heating and cooling repair here, there's no state license standing behind the work. Whatever record exists of who is allowed to do this job, and who checked on them, is whatever the local town keeps, and that varies by address.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why is my heat not working?
- Start with the thermostat and the power to the furnace. If the display is blank, check the breaker and any switch that looks like a light switch near the unit, since that's the furnace's power switch. If it has power but won't fire, the igniter is a common failure, and on a gas furnace a pilot or ignition fault will often show as a blinking light on the control board. With winter nights here dropping to 21°F on average, a furnace that's short cycling or blowing cold air needs attention fast rather than waiting it out.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- Check the filter first. A filter clogged with dust blocks airflow across the coil, and when that happens the coil can ice over so the system runs but the air coming out is barely cool. Also check the outdoor unit, since leaves, grass clippings or anything piled against it stops it from releasing heat. If the filter is clean and the outdoor unit is clear and you're still not getting cold air, the system may be low on refrigerant, and that calls for a contractor with the gauges to check it.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Check the thermostat batteries and settings, the filter, and the power to the unit, including any breaker and any switch near the furnace or outdoor unit. A dirty filter is one of the most common reasons a system stops heating or cooling well, and it's the easiest to fix yourself. If those all check out and the system still isn't working, that points to something inside the unit that needs a contractor to diagnose.