Furnace Repair in Rapid City, SD
Furnaces here run from September through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Pennington County will get in touch.
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Nine months of heat puts real hours on your furnace
Your furnace runs September through May here, nine months out of the year. Winter nights average 13°F from December through February, so the burner is lighting and shutting off many times a night to keep up. Each start puts wear on the igniter and the flame sensor, the parts that get the burner going.
Pennington County has also logged 167 winter storms and 420 damaging wind events over the past ten years. Wind that strong can push back on the vent hood or the flue, and a furnace already worn from a long heating season is more likely to show a problem right when a storm is moving through.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 13°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 59%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 167 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $90 a year off heating for a typical Pennington County home.
Estimates for a typical Pennington County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, South Dakota 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.
In South Dakota, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
Pennington County does not run its own contractor licensing program, so whether this repair requires a license depends on the city or town the house sits in. Some municipalities test and license HVAC contractors, others have no such rule at all. There is no state license behind this job, only whatever the local building office happens to require.
For a furnace repair, the gas connection is the part that matters most, since a bad one is what makes the job dangerous. Whether anyone checks that connection depends on the same local rule, and where a town has no licensing requirement, there is no inspection built into the job either. With close to six in ten homes in Pennington County heating with gas, that connection is doing real work in most furnaces here.
Source: South Dakota Legislature
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Make sure it's set to heat and the temperature is set above room temperature, since a setting bumped by accident is the simplest explanation. If that's not it, check the breaker box, since a tripped breaker will cut power to the furnace even though everything looks fine otherwise. Many furnaces also have a power switch that looks like a light switch near the unit itself, and it's easy to knock off without noticing. If the furnace has a standing pilot, check whether the pilot is lit. Past that, the problem could be the igniter, a safety switch, or the control board, and those need a contractor to diagnose.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Air blowing before it warms up is normal. A furnace runs the blower for a short time after the burners fire, so the first air you feel can be cool. If the air stays cold the whole time it's running, check the thermostat fan setting. If it's set to "on" instead of "auto", the blower runs constantly, including between heating cycles, which feels like cold air. If the fan is set to auto and you're still getting cold air with the furnace running, that points to an ignition problem, and with nights averaging 13°F here through the winter, that's worth getting looked at quickly rather than waiting.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple has worn out. The thermocouple sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to stay open. Once it wears out, it can't hold that signal, so the gas valve shuts and the pilot goes out, even though the flame itself looked fine. A draft blowing out the pilot is the other common cause, so check whether the flame is small or leaning to one side. A contractor can test the thermocouple and replace it if that's the issue.