The goal when installing a furnace for a home is to ensure that the furnace is able to provide the necessary level of comfort throughout the living space. Although there will always be some temperature fluctuations around the rooms (such as due to difference in insulation), the furnace shouldn’t create uneven levels of warmth, with cold spots in some areas.
However, uneven heating is one of the more common problems people face with their furnaces during the winter. You may find yourself dealing with this problem, and the best way to solve it is to call our technicians for heating repair in Bergen County, NY. To give you a better sense of what you might be dealing with, we’re going to discuss the most common reasons for uneven heating from a furnace.
Incorrectly sized furnace
We mentioned that when a furnace is installed, it’s supposed to be able to evenly heat the home. But what happens if the furnace was poorly installed? A furnace that’s undersized, i.e. too underpowered for the house, will only heat certain parts of the building and leave others cold. This is a frequent problem with amateur installers and one of the reasons to only trust pros with a furnace install. If you’ve got an undersized furnace, the solution is to replace it with a correctly sized one.
Faulty thermostat
The furnace might not be the culprit. A malfunction in the home’s thermostat can lead to the furnace receiving the wrong instructions for when to turn on and turn off. When the thermostat is miscalibrated, it may shut the furnace off before it has a chance to evenly heat the home. Or it may leave the furnace on for too long, causing some areas to overheat. Thermostat issues are usually straightforward for professionals to fix.
Dirty air filter
Here’s a problem that you can remedy on your own. The furnace air filter needs to be replaced every one to three months before it becomes too clogged up with debris. A dirty air filter will restrict the flow of air into the furnace, lowering the amount of heated air the system can send into the ducts. This will lead to some areas of the house getting significantly less heat. If your furnace has a clogged up filter, put in a new one to see if this fixes the problem.
Damaged air ducts
The furnace may be putting out the right amount of heated air, but not all of it is getting to the rooms because it’s escaping through holes in the air ducts. This not only creates uneven heating, it wastes a large amount of energy. You’ll need professionals to test and then seal your ducts to stop this.
Dying Furnace
The furnace may be too old and worn down to do its job effectively. If your furnace is more than 15 years old (or 20 years if you have an electric furnace), uneven heating is often a major warning sign that you need to replace the system.
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