Furnace Repair in Baraboo, WI
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Sauk County will get in touch.
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Eight months of heat puts real wear on a furnace here
Baraboo needs a working furnace from October through May, and on winter nights averaging 13°F, that furnace is running long, hard cycles to keep up. Every time it fires, the igniter and the burner take the wear. Over that many months, that adds up faster than it does in places with shorter winters.
Most homes here heat with gas, so when the furnace won't light or won't stay lit, there is no backup warming the house while it waits on a repair. Sauk County has also seen 12 winter storms and 61 damaging wind events over the past ten years, the kind of weather that knocks out power along with the heat. If your furnace stops working during one of those, you notice fast.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 13°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 56%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 12 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $110 a year off heating for a typical Sauk County home.
Estimates for a typical Sauk County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Wisconsin 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.
Wisconsin requires contractors to register with the state.
Registration puts the business on file with the Department of Safety and Professional Services. Nobody tested the contractor's furnace knowledge to get that number, and nothing about the registration says how the work should be done. Wisconsin also blocks counties and cities from layering on their own HVAC license, so that state record is the only one that exists here.
For a furnace repair, the part that matters is the gas connection, since a bad one is what makes the job dangerous. Registration does not check that. In Sauk County, where 56.1% of homes heat with gas, that connection still has to be done right whether or not anyone's business record says so.
Sources: Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau · Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Make sure it's set to heat and the set temperature is above room temperature, since a low battery or a setting bumped to cool will stop the furnace before it starts. Next check the power switch on or near the furnace and the breaker for it, since either one being off shuts the whole system down. If those are fine, the igniter or the flame sensor may have failed, and a contractor can test both and tell you which one it is.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often this means the blower is running but the burners haven't lit yet, or the furnace is stuck in that startup stage. It can also mean the flame sensor is dirty and shutting the burners off right after they light, so you feel the blower air with no heat behind it. A clogged filter can cause the same thing by making the furnace overheat and shut down its burners as a safety measure. Check the filter first, since that's something you can rule out yourself, then call a contractor if the cold air keeps coming.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually points to the thermocouple, the small sensor that tells the gas valve the pilot is burning. When it wears out or sits out of position, it reads the flame as out even when it isn't, and the valve shuts the gas off. A draft blowing across the pilot can cause the same problem, so check whether the flame flickers or leans to one side. Either way, a contractor can test the thermocouple and replace it if that's the cause, since it isn't a part you can safely troubleshoot further on your own.