HVAC Repair in Schenectady, NY
Homes here need heat from October through May and cooling from July through August. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Schenectady County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Ten months of work, most of it in the cold
Your furnace is the one working here. October through May, eight months, it has to carry the house through winter nights that average 17°F. That kind of cold means long burner cycles and a lot of starts. Each start puts load on the igniter and the flame sensor, and those are usually the first parts to fail. When one does, the furnace either won't light or shuts itself off partway through the cycle.
Summer is short here, just July and August, with afternoons around 79°F. If your air conditioner has been sitting most of the year, a weak capacitor or a low refrigerant charge tends to show up right when you turn it back on. Schenectady County has also seen 45 winter storms and 188 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and a power outage on top of a heating or cooling problem is harder on a house that depends on one system for most of the year.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 2 months
- July through August, it cools
- 17°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 79°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace and air conditioner would cut about $190 a year off heating and cooling for a typical Schenectady County home.
Estimates for a typical Schenectady County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, New York fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed.
Replacement makes sense when the furnace's heat exchanger is cracked, the air conditioner's compressor has failed, or repairs keep coming.
- Why is my heat not working?
- Most no-heat calls trace back to the thermostat, the igniter, or a safety switch that shut the furnace down on purpose. Check that the thermostat is set to heat and the batteries are good, and check that the filter isn't clogged enough to choke the airflow. If the furnace runs for a few seconds and shuts off, or won't try to start at all, that's usually the igniter or a flame sensor, and a contractor will need to test it. At 17°F on a winter night here, a furnace that won't stay lit needs attention fast, so don't wait on troubleshooting past what you can check yourself.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- If the blower is running but the air isn't cold, check the filter first. A filter clogged enough to block airflow will freeze the coil, and once that happens the system can blow room-temperature or warm air even though it's working hard. Check the outdoor unit too. If the fan out there isn't spinning or the coil is caked with dirt, the system has nowhere to send the heat it's pulling from the house. If the filter's clean and the outdoor unit looks fine, the problem is likely refrigerant or the compressor, and that needs a contractor's gauges to diagnose.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Start with the thermostat. Make sure it's set to the right mode, the temperature is actually calling for heat or cooling, and the batteries aren't dead. Next check the filter, since a dirty one can cause both a furnace to overheat and an air conditioner to freeze up. Check the breaker for the system too, especially after a storm. With 45 winter storms and 188 damaging wind events here over the last ten years, a tripped breaker after an outage is common enough to rule out before assuming the equipment itself failed. If those all check out and the system still isn't working right, that's the point to call a contractor rather than keep guessing.