Furnace Repair in Oakes, ND
Furnaces here run from September through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Dickey County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Nine months of heat puts a lot of hours on your furnace
From September through May your furnace is the thing standing between your house and a Dickey County winter. On nights that average 6°F, it runs long and it runs often, cycling on and off to hold the temperature as the cold pulls heat back out of the house.
All those hours add up on the parts that start the burner and move the air. An igniter or flame sensor that is wearing out tends to fail on the coldest nights, because that is when the furnace is working hardest. Almost half the homes in this area heat with electricity, and this region has seen 42 winter storms and 36 damaging wind events over the past ten years. When wind takes down power lines, an electric furnace stops with it, and the house starts losing heat right away.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 6°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 42 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
North Dakota requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license is issued through the Secretary of State, and it belongs to the contractor, not to any single job. It covers the business as a whole rather than each repair that business does.
For a furnace repair, that license is what stands behind the person doing the work, as long as the job costs $4,000 or more. Below that amount, North Dakota does not require the contractor to be licensed at all.
Sources: North Dakota Legislative Branch · North Dakota Secretary of State
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to heat and the set temperature is above the room temperature, and check the batteries if it uses them. If the thermostat looks right, check the breaker for the furnace and the switch that looks like a light switch near the unit, since that shuts it off for service and sometimes gets bumped. Furnaces with a standing pilot need that flame lit to run at all, so look for it. If none of that explains it, the furnace needs a contractor to look at the ignition system or the control board, and at 6°F on a winter night here that's not something to leave sitting.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most of the time this means the blower is running but the burners haven't lit. A dirty flame sensor is a common reason for that, since it tells the furnace a flame is present and shuts off gas when it can't confirm one. A clogged filter can also cause this, because it starves the burners of airflow and trips a safety switch. If the air has been cold for a while rather than just the first few seconds after startup, don't keep running it. Have it looked at, since a furnace here is working nine months of the year and a burner that won't stay lit needs a contractor to find out why.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This is almost always the thermocouple, the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to stay open. When it wears out or sits slightly out of position, the valve reads no flame and shuts the gas off even though the pilot is lit. A draft blowing across the pilot can cause the same thing, so check that nothing nearby is pushing air at it. If you've relit it more than once and it keeps going out, the thermocouple needs replacing, and that's a job for a licensed contractor rather than something to keep repeating on your own.