Furnace repair in Smithville

If you smell gas, that rotten-egg odour, or the carbon monoxide alarm is going off, leave the furnace alone. Don't relight it, don't flip light switches, and get everyone outside. Call your gas utility's emergency line or emergency services from outside the house. Once the house has been checked and declared safe, the furnace itself can be looked at.

The Ontario Fire Code requires a working carbon monoxide alarm next to each sleeping area in any home with a fuel-burning appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage. If yours has been chirping or is past the replacement date printed on the back, swap it now rather than mid-winter. A cracked heat exchanger is one of the ways combustion gases can reach the air the furnace blows through the house, and it is not a fault to keep running with.

The newer homes on Spring Creek Rd., in the Marz Subdivision and on the newest streets around Station Meadows mostly have high-efficiency condensing furnaces. They breathe through two plastic pipes in the side wall, and they drain water through a small condensate line. A drift over the pipes, frost building on the exhaust during a long cold snap, or a condensate line that freezes where it runs through a cold spot will make the furnace shut itself down for safety. That is the furnace doing its job, not breaking.

Before you call, clear the snow from around both pipes by hand, check that the filter isn't clogged, and turn the furnace switch off and back on once. If the heat comes back and stays on, good. If the pipes keep icing up or the furnace locks out again, the venting or the drain may need to be rerouted. Our guide on side-wall vents, snow and carbon monoxide walks through what to watch for.

Cold air from the registers often means the burners never lit and the blower is running anyway, or a limit switch tripped because the filter is choked and the furnace overheated. Sometimes it is simply the thermostat fan set to on instead of auto, so check that first.

Short cycling, where the furnace starts and stops every few minutes, can come from a flame sensor coated in residue, a blocked filter, closed-off registers or a furnace that is far too big for the house. Noises tell their own story: a bang on start-up can mean delayed ignition, a squeal often comes from the blower motor, and a growl or hum at start-up can be a tired inducer motor. None of these is a guessing game, but each one has a short list of likely causes, and telling us exactly what you hear and when helps narrow it down.

Station Meadows is an established subdivision, and many of its forced-air gas furnaces are now near the end of their service life. At that stage the repairs we see shift from small parts like igniters and sensors to heat exchangers, blower motors and control boards.

That is when the honest question becomes repair or replace. If the furnace is otherwise sound and the repair is a small fraction of a new unit, fixing it usually makes sense. If it is older and facing a major part, you get both numbers so you can decide. If replacement wins, our furnace installation and replacement page explains how we size the new one to the house rather than the old label.

The oldest houses along Griffin Street, St. Catharines Street, Canborough Street and Station Street were first heated with wood or coal, then converted to oil and later gas. Many still have an oversized converted furnace, which tends to short cycle and wear its parts faster. Their chimneys were built for a much bigger fire, and when a furnace upgrade leaves the water heater venting alone up that old flue, it may not draft properly and the chimney can need relining.

The ductwork in these houses can be undersized for a modern blower or wrapped in old insulation. If you see old wrap on the ducts, leave it alone and mention it when you call, so the technician knows before reaching into that part of the basement.

Furnaces here are already working hard by late autumn: Environment Canada's Hamilton forecast lists normal early-November highs of 8°C and lows of 0°C, so a weak part often shows itself in the first cold weeks. When you get in touch, tell us what the furnace is doing, when it started and whether anything changed, like a storm, a new thermostat or a filter swap.

The technician goes over the furnace with you, explains what they found and writes down the price of the repair. Nothing is fitted until you approve that number. If a part for an older furnace is hard to source, or a repair isn't worth making, you hear that plainly.

Under Ontario Regulation 212/01, gas furnaces have to be serviced and repaired by a registered contractor's gas technicians. Work is performed by TSSA-certified gas technicians. To keep small faults from turning into no-heat calls, see furnace and AC maintenance, or contact us about a repair.