Furnace Repair in Spearfish, SD
Furnaces here run from September through June. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Lawrence County will get in touch.
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Ten months of heat asks a lot of a furnace here
Your furnace runs from September through June in Spearfish, ten months with almost no break. On winter nights that average 13°F, it cycles on and off again and again just to hold the temperature.
All that cycling wears on the igniter and the flame sensor first, since those parts fire every time the burner does. A furnace that struggles to start, or shuts off a few minutes after it kicks on, is usually telling you one of those parts is failing. Lawrence County has logged 105 winter storms and 93 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and a furnace that quits on one of those nights is not a rare thing here.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 13°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 53%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 105 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 Lawrence County home.
Estimates for a typical Lawrence 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.
South Dakota does not test or license HVAC contractors at the state level. Whatever rule applies to a furnace repair in Lawrence County comes from the city or town, not the state, and there is no statewide record to check either way.
On a furnace repair, the gas connection is the part that matters most, since a bad one is what makes the job dangerous. There is no state license standing behind that work here, only whatever rule the local town or city has set on its own. More than half the homes in Lawrence County heat with gas, so that connection is a real part of the job, not an edge case.
Source: South Dakota Legislature
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to heat and the temperature is above room temperature, and swap the batteries if it uses them. If the thermostat looks right, check the breaker for the furnace and the switch that looks like a light switch near the unit, sometimes it gets bumped off. Furnaces also have a safety switch on the door panel that stops the unit if the door isn't seated right, so make sure the panel is on securely. If none of that gets it running, the igniter or a safety sensor may have failed, and that calls for a contractor to test it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most of the time this means the blower is running but the burners aren't lighting. A dirty flame sensor is a common cause, it can't detect the flame and shuts the gas off a few seconds after ignition. A clogged filter can also starve the burners of air and trip a limit switch that keeps the blower on without heat. If you've changed the filter recently and it still blows cold, the igniter or gas valve may need a contractor to look at it, especially with nights averaging 13°F here in the winter.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually means the thermocouple has worn out. It's the small metal rod that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve the flame is lit, and once it weakens it can't hold the valve open even with the pilot burning. A draft blowing out the pilot is another cause, worth checking if the flame goes out only when it's windy. Either way, a furnace with a standing pilot doesn't rely on electricity to run that pilot, so a power outage isn't the issue. If relighting it keeps failing, have a contractor replace the thermocouple before the cold really sets in.