Heating & Furnace
Heating and furnace repair in Benton, AR
A furnace that will not light, or a heat pump losing ground on a cold morning, is not something to leave until next week. Call (501) 778-3324 and we will get to what is actually wrong.
Chapter 01
What actually fails on a furnace or heat pump
A cracked heat exchanger is not something we repair, it is something we condemn, and that is a safety call rather than a judgment call. A cracked exchanger can let combustion byproducts mix into the air the furnace is supposed to be warming, so when we find one, the furnace gets shut down and you get a plain explanation of why a repair is not the right answer, only a replacement.
Short of that, the calls we see most are a failed hot surface igniter that will not glow hot enough to light the burners, and a flame sensor that has fouled with a thin layer of carbon so the furnace lights, senses no flame because the sensor cannot read through the buildup, and shuts itself off again a few seconds later. That short-cycling pattern, light, run a few seconds, shut off, repeat, is one of the more recognizable failure signs a homeowner in Benton or Bryant can describe to us over the phone before we ever walk in the door. On the heat pump side, capacity drops off once outdoor temperatures fall into the low 30s, and that is where auxiliary electric heat strips are supposed to pick up the difference. When they do not, or when they run constantly instead of only on the coldest mornings, that is worth a service call too.
Jones Heating & Air's Benton, AR headquarters with red and blue channel-letter signage lit against a blue sky
How we diagnose it against real numbers
We check gas pressure and the temperature rise across the heat exchanger against the manufacturer's data plate rather than against a general rule of thumb, because that plate is specific to the unit in front of us. A rise that is too high or too low points to an airflow or gas pressure problem even when the burners themselves look fine.
On a heat pump, we look at whether the auxiliary strips are coming on at the right outdoor temperature and staying off the rest of the time, since strips that run too often are an expensive way to heat a house and usually mean the heat pump itself is not pulling its share of the load anymore.
Chapter 03
Why it is worth calling before a cold snap
A furnace that short-cycles on igniter or flame sensor problems tends to get worse gradually, not all at once, which makes it easy to live with until the night it finally does not light at all. Jones Heating & Air has kept Central Arkansas warm since 1985, and the 24 hour emergency line at (501) 778-3324 is there for exactly that night.
We install Trane and Rheem furnaces and heat pumps and are a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Contractor for ductless heat pump systems, and free estimates on new units apply here the same as they do on the cooling side, if a system is old enough that replacement makes more sense than another repair.
Jones Heating & Air has serviced furnaces and heat pumps across Saline County since 1985, with a 24 hour emergency line for the calls that cannot wait: (501) 778-3324.