Furnace Repair in Portales, NM
Furnaces here run from October through April. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Roosevelt County will get in touch.
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Portales asks a lot of your furnace, seven months at a time
October through April, your furnace is the only thing standing between your family and a 26°F night. That is seven months of the burner cycling on and off, night after night, and every start puts wear on the igniter and the parts that control the flame. Most homes here run electric heat, so when the furnace stops working, there is no backup keeping the house warm while you wait.
Roosevelt County has seen 53 damaging wind events and 6 winter storms over the past ten years, and storms here have knocked out power to homes for a day or more. When the power drops, an electric furnace stops with it, and it will not start again until the power and the thermostat both come back on.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 26°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 6 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
New Mexico requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Construction Industries Division tests and licenses HVAC contractors across New Mexico, including here in Roosevelt County. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job, so it travels with them from one furnace repair to the next rather than getting issued fresh each time.
For a furnace repair, that state license is what stands behind the person working on your gas connections and burner. Furnace work means checking gas lines and combustion, and the license is the state's record that the contractor has been tested on that kind of work before they show up at your door.
Source: New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. If the screen is blank, check the batteries before anything else. If the thermostat looks fine, check the breaker and the furnace's own power switch, which looks like a light switch near the unit. Some furnaces also have a door that has to be seated right, since a safety switch there will stop the furnace from starting if the door is loose or off. With winter lows here averaging 26°F, a furnace that won't start needs attention the same day, so if the basics check out and it still won't run, get a contractor out to look at it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often the furnace is running the fan without the burners lit. Check the thermostat fan setting. If it's set to "on" instead of "auto", the blower runs all the time, and it will feel cold between heating cycles even though the furnace is working. If the fan is set to auto and you're still getting cold air, the burners may not be igniting, which points to the igniter, the flame sensor, or the gas valve. That's not something to troubleshoot yourself. Homes here need the furnace running well from October through April, so get it looked at before the next cold stretch.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A pilot that won't stay lit is usually 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 no flame and shuts the gas off even though the pilot was lit a moment ago. A draft or a dirty pilot opening can also blow the flame out. Relighting it yourself following the instructions on the furnace is fine, but if it goes out again, the thermocouple likely needs replacing, and that's a job for a licensed contractor. New Mexico requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license, and gas furnace repair is exactly the kind of work that license covers.