Ask Lemmy

They quit working when they’re not properly maintained. That’s all there is to it.

We were in a similar position, but just poor as heck, and a couple of times every winter I was down in the basement trying to get the heat fixed again. It was always little things. Bearing starting to fail, shaft keys getting loose and pulleys spinning, thermocouples failing. The units were 20+ years old. They were inefficient AF and really needed to go.

Now? We make sure to have the HVAC serviced yearly. It’s a couple hundred bucks. I travel a lot for work and it’s down to 20°F at night. Can’t have this stuff failing on the fam while I’m away. I can’t remember the last time it failed.

What they’re saving in maintenance they’re probably losing in efficiency. They’ll be able to carry the units only so far until one inevitably fails, irreparably, on a holiday weekend and it will cost a fortune for the weekend/emergency service rate to get someone to come by and repair or replace it. Worse yet if it fails while everyone is away and now you’ve got frozen pipes and water damage.

My house has two furnaces: one gas (methane, or city gas) which I only use for water heating (showers, etc) and one wood pellet. They both warm up water in the heaters circuit, and can be used at the same way.

The gas one is more expensive to run (400€/month), but require zero maintenance, except some predictive maintenance like cleaning filters once a year in summertime.

The wood pellet one is way cheaper to operate (1.5k€/year, for 9 months of operation) but require weekly cleaning and daily fuel loading. Also for this one once a year maintenance is mandatory, deep cleaning, replacing some perishable parts and so on.

So, yes, every furnace require periodical maintenance to operate properly, and should work just fine for 10 or even 20 years if you are careful and do the proper maintenance.

During the time when I grew up in my parents house, the heat failed exactly once, and there the heating system has to be replaced. It didn't fail before, it didn't fail after. It didn't have any short term "hiccups", ever. So to answer your question: Once in like 20 years.

Since I'm living on my own, I've had trouble starting the very old gas stove for the apartment twice, and each time at the beginning of the heating season. Once it's running, it just works. The thing is 60ish years old btw. and technicians refuse to touch it for fear of liability. Basically works fine since I cleaned it properly the last time it refused to start.

Heating should be reliable, and it usually just is. What you're describing is not normal. I don't even know anyone who has recurring issues with their heat.

Most furnace problems can be fixed by cleaning the flame sensor, which is like 5 minutes to do. It would be like $150+ to have someone come out, check for continuity, clean with a $10 tool, and check again.

I think a lot of people are too intimidated by not wanting to overcome their ignorance and possibly make things worse to even begin learning simple tasks that can save them loads of cash.

For me to call a professional means me deciding that a professional is cheaper than me buying specialized tools that I will rarely use again.

Generally speaking, a modern heating system should not fail nearly this often, even if neglected. Need more information (like the type of heating system, age) but it sounds like it could be a wiring issue with the house, or a flaky dying controller. Replacing the controller is not that expensive, especially if you do it yourself.

In 20 years I think our heater has actually broken once. We've had little things that needed fixing, but it still worked. If every year I'd have an issue where the heater stops working I'd have replaced it a long time ago. Either your dads fixes aren't very good, or your heater is just fucked.

Yeah — I eventually learned to fix some things myself because when it does break, the repair people tell me it’ll be 2-3 weeks, but in the meantime it’s cold.

If the central heater is a heat pump or natural gas or something other than electrical resistance, it may be net savings to actually get it fixed, as per unit of heat, it'll probably be cheaper to operate than the space heaters. Though if you're just heating part of the house with those space heaters, that might make up for it.

It really depends on the furnace and what exactly is breaking. For example, it isn't unusual to have to clean or replace a flame sensor every once in a while. Fan motors, sensors, and valves of all sorts will die ocasionally. If it's a really old one with a pilot light then that can also be a frequent but usually easy to fix issue.

I work in HVAC and I've still had mine quit for a bit just about every other year. I've had to replace a flame sensor a couple times, a gas valve, a sensor for the exhaust blower, and a fan motor. But my furnace is from the early 90s and was not a high end model even then. Old equipment eventually just starts breaking all over the place but if you have the skills then it can still make sense to just keep limping it along for as long as you can.

So I would say no, except over the last 4-5 years, without fail, every winter we would run into furnace issues that it first were kind of an easy quick fix and just kind of a pain but then over time got to the point where even after replacing relays and a few other parts it still wasn't operating properly, and finally died on us. We had a home warranty at first, and they would send out someone who would get it working for maybe another 3-6 months but after 3 years we got rid of it because they refused to ever actually replace anything. Finally on the 4th winter, the furnace went and never came back. Ended up replacing the HVAC units and upgrading a bit, and it's been great. Even with higher utility prices we're paying significantly less on electrical and gas bills and no issues.

That's not normal. Not trying to sound harsh but most likely your dad doesn't know what he's doing / has no money to properly maintain or fix/replace the heating system you're using now. Not sure what type of system you guys use but generally speaking well maintained heating systems do need some maintenance every year to keep them running efficiently. Usually the household does that sort of work in the fall/early winter.

Or maybe your dad is such a penny pincher that they think $2500 or the $ for proper yearly maintenance is more money vs using space heaters. That kind of thinking is a bit silly since usually the electric bills you accumulate year over year running space heaters in every room adds up to way more than just fixing the heating system properly.

I wouldn't say normal, but also not uncommon especially if you're someone that's good with tinkering.

Basically if the furnace is fairly old, parts start wearing down and requires replacement or fixing. So you get to a point where you have to fix things more often because all the parts have reached end of life. Often it'll be a small thing like maybe you need to clean the flame sensor, and then after that your negative pressure sensor goes out so you have to fix that. Those are all safety measures, so the furnace might be working perfectly fine but the control board thinks it's unsafe, and shuts down, which is the correct thing to do. There's a possibility the wire juggling is bypassing some of those.

But a lot of those items you can do for basically free or really cheap, so it's not appealing to throw $2500 on a whole new one or to get a professional in to charge you $300 for the same fix. Furnaces also need to be services regularly, ideally yearly to check everything is good and prevent failures at inconvenient times, which many just can't afford or don't want to spend the money on. If $2500 is a lot of money for your parents, it's just a small tradeoff that yeah it might go out every now and then and you fix it for so much cheaper.

I had a similar problem. Mine was a gas heater. The little fan (induction motor?) shit out. AC guy who was always good to us and honest came out and sprayed WD-40 on it and said it'll get you through the year, which it did, but it failed after that. He said it would be $800 to replace but I didn't have it. Found a replacement on Amazon for $45 and watched a YouTube tutorial and fixed it no problem. Check that if it sounds like your problem and you're handy or someone you know is. Saved me $750 and I never had an issue again.

That little fan is what brings fresh air into the system because gas or whatever so if it fails the system will shut down because of safety.

I had a fuck ass boiler where the pump would get stuck from not running in the warmer months, the sediments would still and the pump wouldn't move. So in the fall when it came time to use it I always had to whack it with a 2x4 and a hammer to get it to spin again. Could be similar.

Every year I have to hound the landlord to get the heater working again, so I guess. Though yours sounds more like a technical issue