Furnace Repair in Missoula, MT
Furnaces here run from September through June. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Missoula County will get in touch.
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Your furnace works nearly the whole year here
Missoula County needs heat from September through June. That is ten months of the burner lighting and shutting off, over and over, night after night. Winter lows average 17°F, so the furnace is not just running, it is working hard to keep up.
All that cycling wears on the parts that start the burner and keep it running. Igniters wear out. Flame sensors get dirty and stop reading the flame right. When one of those fails, the furnace either will not light or shuts itself off partway through a cycle, and you notice the house not holding its temperature the way it should.
More than half the homes here heat with gas, so a working furnace is not optional once the cold sets in. Power outages add another risk. Montana households saw outages of 24 hours or more last year, and a furnace with no power will not light no matter what shape its parts are in.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 17°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 53%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 164 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $100 a year off heating for a typical Missoula County home.
Estimates for a typical Missoula County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Montana 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.
Montana requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state license covers the contractor as a business, not the specific repair being done at your house. Montana's Department of Labor and Industry issues it, which means the contractor behind the work has been tested and has a record with the state. If your repair costs less than $2,500, the state does not require a licensed contractor for that job.
More than half the homes in Missoula County heat with gas, and a furnace repair often means someone is working on a gas connection, the part of the job where a mistake matters most. In Montana, the license is what stands behind the person doing that work.
Source: Montana Legislature
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. If the display is blank or the setting is wrong, the furnace never gets the signal to start. Check the breaker next, since a tripped one will shut the whole system down with no warning at the unit itself. If power and the thermostat both check out, the igniter or a safety switch inside the furnace may be at fault, and that calls for a contractor to open it up and test each part.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often this means the blower is running but the burners haven't lit yet. That gap can last a minute or so on a normal cycle, so cold air right at startup isn't unusual. If it keeps blowing cold the whole time it runs, the igniter or the gas valve likely isn't doing its job, and a contractor will need to check both. A dirty filter can also cause problems, since it blocks the airflow the furnace needs to heat properly, so check that first since it's the easiest thing to rule out yourself.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This is usually the thermocouple. It's the small part that senses the pilot flame and keeps gas flowing to it, and once it wears out or sits out of position, it reads the flame as out even when it isn't and cuts the gas. A draft blowing across the pilot can also snuff it out, so check whether anything nearby is pushing air toward it. Either way, a furnace that won't hold a pilot light needs a contractor to look at it, since it's a gas safety component and not something to keep relighting on your own.