Furnace Repair in Belle Fourche, SD
Furnaces here run from September through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Butte County will get in touch.
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Nine months of heat puts a lot of hours on a furnace here
Belle Fourche needs a working furnace from September through May. That is nine months a year of the burner lighting and the blower running, night after night through winter lows that average 12°F.
All those hours add up on the parts that start the burner. An igniter or a flame sensor wears with each cycle, and after enough winters one of them fails. When that happens, the blower may still run but no warm air comes out, or the furnace shuts off partway through a cycle and will not restart.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 12°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 27 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
In South Dakota, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
There is no statewide license behind a furnace repair here. What exists instead depends on the city or town where the house sits. Some places in South Dakota run their own licensing for HVAC work, others do not, so whether a contractor has been tested or registered anywhere is a question the address answers, not the state.
For a gas furnace, the part that matters most is the gas connection itself, since a bad one is what makes the repair dangerous. Whether anyone checks that connection depends on whether the town where the furnace sits has its own licensing rule for this work. Where no city rule applies, there is no license and no local record standing behind the repair, only the contractor's own.
Source: South Dakota Legislature
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most of the time it's the thermostat, a tripped breaker, or the switch on the furnace itself being off. Check the thermostat batteries first, since a dead set will shut the whole system down without any warning on the display. If the breaker looks fine and the switch is on, the igniter or the flame sensor could be the problem, and those need a contractor to check. With winter lows here averaging 12°F, it's worth getting this looked at quickly rather than waiting.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- If air is moving but it's not warm, the furnace may be running the blower without the burners lighting. That points to the igniter, the flame sensor, or a gas supply problem. A dirty filter can also cause the burners to shut off partway through a cycle while the blower keeps running. Either way, this isn't something to leave alone with 9 months of heating season ahead.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A pilot light that won't stay lit is usually a worn thermocouple, the part that senses the flame and keeps the gas valve open. If it can't sense the flame properly, it shuts the gas off as a safety measure, even when the pilot is actually burning fine. A draft blowing across the pilot can also blow it out repeatedly. Either problem calls for a contractor, since it involves the gas valve and shouldn't be worked on by trial and error.