What to Do When Your Furnace Starts Blowing Cold Air

It defeats the entire purpose of having a furnace in the first place, and so from the moment you get to know that your furnace is blowing cold air, all hell breaks loose. This mostly takes place when the cold weather starts getting into motion. You go to turn on your furnace for the first time in a long time, after many months of non-use, and you are a victim of an improperly functioning furnace.

While it can be irritating to deal with this situation, you must not get too worked up about it. Before you decide to troubleshoot the furnace issues on your own, it will be interesting to know the heating mechanism of your furnace, by which an HVAC expert, like mr.furnaceright-time.ca, is well versed with. This way, you can rule out the issues that you can solve on your own. As for other situations, we advise you to call the expert maintenance staff for the earliest maintenance services, if the situation is out of your hand.

We decided, that while certain situations may be out of hand, there could be some general situations that have an easy fix at home. So, we created a list of 7 common reasons why your furnace may be acting strangely and throwing out cold air. If it is any one of these reasons, no need to hand out money to the experts for a job that lasts a couple of minutes.

Maybe it just hasn’t warmed up entirely yet

Since your furnace has been turned off for a while, you are bound to experience a bit of a hurdle, making sure it gets back on track again. Give it a little time to start up. Even if your furnace blows cold air for a little while after you turn it on, do not worry as this is entirely normal. However, if it continues to blow cold air even after a great deal of time has passed by, you need to find out what exactly is causing this problem.

A valve problem or extinguished pilot light

There may be a fault with the gas valve if the pilot light does not work at all. Your valve could also get stuck owing to debris and dirt because your system may not have been cleaned for a while. It is important to make sure your entire system is cleaned and examined by an experienced HVAC professional. Also, your pilot light may be out because a gust of air may have blown it out. This can happen if someone is working near the furnace. You can try relighting the pilot light yourself or get in touch with a professional if the problem persists.

An overheated furnace

Have you replaced your air filter lately? If you have not, it’s high time that you do. This is because the compromised airflow can lead to an overheated furnace. This will eventually cause the burner to shut down. This is the major reason why the furnace is not giving out hot air. When this happens, you can try to change the air filter and restart the furnace.

Alter the settings on the thermostat

This is another common issue. It is essential to examine the thermostat. Thermostats come with an array of options. So yours could be in the wrong setting, or it may be malfunctioning. When it comes to your furnace blowing cold air, be sure to inspect what the settings of the fan are like. It could either be set to “on” or “auto”. If it is set to on, the fan is going to blow air without offering heat. It is vital to change the setting back to auto if you want to get heat again.

There could be a problem with computerized controls

If you have just bought a new furnace and it comes with a control panel, you may have to reset the system. Attempt turning off the furnace with the help of the power switch. Make sure you wait for a few minutes before you restart it. This works along the same lines of rebooting your computer in order to look after a glitch in the software. If the furnace still happens to blow cold air, call a professional.

The flame sensor may be dirty

Did you know that there are furnaces that come with pilotless ignition? These furnaces make use of a flame sensor to ensure the furnace stays burning once it is turned on. However, if the flame sensor is dirty, your furnace is going to turn on and start heating only to turn cold again and promptly at that. If you know a thing or two about furnaces and their components, you can try cleaning the flame sensor yourself. If not, have an HVAC expert look into the matter.

Having an empty Oil Tank

If you have an oil-fired furnace, you may be out of fuel. If so, your blower may keep circulating cold air even after the burners fail to light and produce heat. So, make sure that if you have an oil-fired furnace, it is refueled from time to time to ensure a situation like this doesn’t happen, especially in the middle of the night, when it’ll be extremely difficult to refuel it.

So there you have it,  some of the common reasons why your furnace starts to blow cold air and what you can do about it. Whatever you do, make sure you get in contact with a skilled and qualified professional, who is well aware of the many components and issues faced by a furnace.