HVAC Repair in Pekin, 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 Tazewell County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, four of cooling, and not much rest between
Your furnace in Pekin runs from October to May, and on the nights that drop to 20°F it cycles on and off for hours to hold the house steady. Each start puts load on the igniter and the burner. When one of them wears out, the furnace stops firing and the house goes cold on the coldest nights, not the mild ones.
Then summer flips the job to your air conditioner for June through September, working against afternoons near 84°F. Most homes here heat with gas, so the furnace and the AC are often tied to the same ducts and the same thermostat. A wind event or a winter storm that cuts power, and Illinois sees plenty of both, can knock either system offline until it resets or gets looked at.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 4 months
- June through September, it cools
- 20°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 Tazewell County home.
Estimates for a typical Tazewell 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.
Illinois does not license HVAC contractors at the state level. Whether a license is required, and what it takes to get one, depends on the city or town where the house sits, since the state leaves that decision to local government instead of setting one rule for everywhere.
In Tazewell County, that means there is no state record standing behind the contractor who does this repair. Gas connections are the part of this job where a mistake turns dangerous, and whether that gets checked comes down to whatever rule the local government where the house sits has put in place, not anything the state requires.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why is my heat not working?
- Most often the thermostat is calling for heat but something in the ignition sequence is failing. On a gas furnace that usually means the igniter is worn out, the flame sensor is dirty, or a safety switch tripped and shut the system down before it could light. Check that the thermostat is set to heat and above room temperature, and check the breaker or switch on the furnace itself. Winter nights here get down to 20°F, so a furnace that stops working can let a house cool fast, which makes this worth calling in soon rather than waiting.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- If air is moving but it is not cold, the problem is usually low refrigerant from a leak, a coil that is frozen over, or an outdoor unit that cannot get rid of heat because it is dirty or blocked. A dirty air filter can also choke off airflow enough that the coil freezes, which stops cooling even though the blower runs fine. Check the filter first since that is the one thing you can rule out yourself. On an 84°F afternoon a system that runs constantly without cooling the house usually has one of these problems rather than just being undersized.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Start with the thermostat. Make sure it is set to the right mode, the temperature is set past room temperature, and the display has power. Next check the air filter, since a clogged one can cause both weak airflow and a frozen coil, and check the breaker panel for a tripped breaker on the furnace or outdoor unit. If the outdoor unit has a power switch nearby, make sure it has not been bumped off. If everything there checks out and the system still is not working, that points to something inside that needs a contractor to diagnose.