Furnace Repair and No Heat Calls in Syracuse and Onondaga County

Start with the thermostat fan setting, because on ON the blower runs whether or not there is a flame and a healthy furnace looks dead. If it is on AUTO and the air is still cool, the furnace is trying to heat and failing to prove a flame. The usual reasons are a sooted flame sensor, a failed igniter or a gas supply problem, and one of those is a cleaning job. New York requires this behavior: section G2431.2 of the Residential Code of New York State says a fuel gas space heating appliance in a home must shut the fuel off to the main burner when the flame or pilot goes out. The blower carrying on afterwards is the furnace clearing itself, not the furnace ignoring you.

Not necessarily, and the short list is worth going through before assuming it is. A furnace that starts and stops repeatedly is usually being stopped by one of its own safeties. A choked filter or a blocked return overheats the heat exchanger and trips the high limit. A sooted flame sensor loses the flame signal seconds after ignition. A blocked vent or a waterlogged hose stops the pressure switch proving. On a high efficiency furnace a blocked condensate drain or a failed pump shuts the appliance down deliberately, because the Residential Code of New York State requires a condensing appliance either to have an auxiliary drain pan or to shut down when the drainage stops. Every one of those is cheap. None of them is the heat exchanger, and a diagnosis that goes straight there without ruling them out is worth a question.

Ask three things and the conversation changes. Ask to be shown the failed part at the appliance. Ask what the technician watched the furnace do, stage by stage, before reaching the conclusion. If the address is in the City of Syracuse, ask which class of City mechanical license they hold, because the Board of Mechanical Examiners grades them by equipment and capacity and the answer is checkable against a list the city publishes. On age: the Energy Information Administration reports 31.1 percent of main heating equipment in the Middle Atlantic division at twenty years or older, against 19.1 percent nationally, so an old system in this part of the country is ordinary rather than scandalous. Age alone is not a diagnosis. What age does legitimately change is how likely the next failure is and whether parts are still made, and both are fair to ask about.

First, understand what the tag is. A contractor's tag is that contractor refusing to operate the appliance and declining to relight it. It is a safety judgment. It is not a municipal order, and those two things are constantly confused. In the City of Syracuse the authority to designate premises unfit and placard them sits with the director under section 27-115 of the Property Conservation Code and runs through a written notice and order with a chance to comply first, which is a different process entirely. Second, a second opinion is a reasonable next step and it is worth having the finding described precisely: what was seen, how, and with what instrument. Nobody should promise you that a cracked heat exchanger can be repaired, because the honest answer is usually that it cannot. The reason this finding is taken seriously in New York is on public record: Amanda's Law, Chapter 367 of the Laws of 2009, is named for a sixteen year old who died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak in a defective boiler.

It depends on the municipality, and that is not a dodge, it is the actual rule. 19 NYCRR 1203.3(a)(1) requires permits for work that must conform to the Uniform Code, and then allows each authority having jurisdiction to exempt listed categories in its own code enforcement program. Two of those categories are repairs that do not affect the structural system, means of egress or fire protection, and replacement of equipment that does not alter the equipment's listing or depart from its original specifications. Because the exemption is optional, neighbors answer differently. The Village of Liverpool names installation of any new or replacement furnace, central air conditioning, boiler or other heating equipment on its own permit list. The Town of Salina's published list says additions or new heating systems and is silent on replacement. The Town of DeWitt will not process an application without a signed estimate, a copy of a current survey and the fee. In the City of Syracuse the HVAC permit is a separate trade permit, not part of a residential construction permit. Note also that swapping an older atmospheric furnace for a high efficiency condensing one changes the equipment's listing, so it falls outside the like for like exemption anyway, and an exemption from a permit is never an authorization to work in violation of the Codes.

Probably not, and the gap is usually the furnace room. New York Executive Law section 378(5-a) requires an operable carbon monoxide detector in every one or two family dwelling, condominium or cooperative dwelling accommodation and multiple dwelling where there is an appliance that may emit carbon monoxide or an attached garage. Section 915.3.1 of the Fire Code of New York State goes further than most people expect and requires detection in all rooms and occupiable spaces that contain a fuel burning appliance, which in this metro usually means the basement the furnace is in. Section 915.3 also rules out the two places people put them for convenience, next to a fresh air return and in dead or turbulent air, because both can keep the gas away from the sensor. In an existing home a sealed ten year battery unit listed to UL 2034 is generally acceptable, so the thing to check is the manufacture date on the back rather than the battery. A unit past its ten year life may not sound whatever the test button does.

Waiting is a bet on a date that moves. The 1991-2020 NOAA normals put the median first fall minimum at or below 32F in Syracuse on October 14, with a one in ten chance it arrives by October 1 and a one in ten chance it holds off past October 31. So the first real test of the system is whichever night it lands on, and you do not get to choose. The City of Syracuse defines its heating season as September 15 to May 31, which is eight and a half months, and the monthly normals put 6,168 of the annual 6,651 heating degree days into the seven months from October through April, 92.7 percent of the total. If the system gave trouble last spring, running it for an hour in September finds the fault while an appointment is easy to get rather than on the night everyone else is calling.