Your furnace never gets a break here
Homes in Grand County run heat every month of the year. Winter nights average 8 degrees, so the burner is cycling on hard, cold air for months straight.
Furnace Repair in Granby, CO
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That kind of load catches up with a furnace
A system running this often wears through igniters, flame sensors and blower motors sooner than one that gets months off. Whatever's acting up in your furnace, there's a good chance the hours behind it are part of the story.
- 8°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 50%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 139 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
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NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Half the homes in Grand County were built in 1990 or later.
A furnace that came with a newer house still has years in it, and a repair likely makes more sense than a replacement.
Gas here runs $10.09 per million Btu, and a furnace that's struggling burns through more of it every month
A furnace burning more gas than it should isn't a small thing to let ride. Every extra cycle it takes to heat the house, every minute a dirty burner or a cracked heat exchanger makes it work harder, shows up on the meter. At $10.09 per million Btu, that waste adds up fast over a winter this long. Get it looked at before the next cold stretch, not after.
Get the furnace looked at, not just the symptom
A furnace running every month here doesn't get the downtime other systems get. When something's acting up, it's rarely a one-part problem. Have it diagnosed properly so the fix holds through the rest of winter.
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What actually happens when someone comes out to look at it
A diagnostic starts with questions, not tools. A tech wants to know when the trouble started and what the furnace actually does. Does the burner try to light and fail. Does it run and blow cold air. Does it shut off on its own partway through a cycle. The answers point toward certain parts before a panel ever comes off. Then the cabinet comes off and the tech watches a full cycle happen, since some of these faults only show up partway through, not at startup. After that it's testing parts directly. Voltage at the igniter. Flame signal at the sensor. Continuity through the limit switch. Whatever the readings show is what gets replaced. A good diagnosis ends with one answer, not a guess dressed up as one.
Check the simple things first
Look at the thermostat before anything else. Make sure it's set to heat and the set temperature is above room temperature, and swap the batteries if it uses them. Check the air filter next. A filter choked with dust cuts off airflow and can cause the furnace to overheat and shut itself down. Walk down to the furnace and see if the switch on or near it, the one that looks like a light switch, got bumped off. Check the breaker too.
Know what you can't check yourself
If the burner won't light, if the furnace runs but blows cold air, or if it shuts off shortly after starting, that's not something to chase further on your own. Those point to a flame sensor, an igniter, a pressure switch or a limit switch, and getting to the real cause means opening the cabinet and testing parts with a meter. If you smell gas or see soot around the burner compartment, shut the furnace off at the switch and don't try to restart it.
A new furnace would cut about $150 a year off heating for a typical Grand County home.
Estimates for a typical Grand County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Colorado 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.
A repair makes sense when the failure is one part doing one job. An igniter that won't glow, a flame sensor that's lost its signal, a capacitor gone weak. Those fail on their own timeline, and swapping the part brings the furnace back to normal. Replacement starts to make more sense when the heat exchanger is cracked. That's not a part you replace on its own, and it's a safety issue, not just a performance one, since it can let combustion gas into the air the blower moves through the house. The same goes for a furnace that keeps coming back for different repairs each time something gets fixed. If a contractor tells you the fix is specific and the rest of the system checked out fine, that's a furnace worth repairing. If they're finding a second and third thing wrong while chasing the first, that pattern is worth paying attention to.
