Furnace Repair in Berlin, NH
Furnaces here run from September through June. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Coos County will get in touch.
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Ten months of heat, and nights near zero
Berlin needs a working furnace from September through June. That is ten months of the year with winter nights averaging 8°F from December through February. A furnace built for occasional cold snaps somewhere else is running here almost constantly, and the burner cycles on and off many times a day to keep up.
Most homes in this area heat with fuel oil, and that means an oil furnace working through a long, hard winter. The storms that come through, and there have been 93 of them over the past ten years along with 62 damaging wind events, bring power outages with them. Nearly a quarter of New Hampshire households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024 alone. A furnace that will not restart when the power comes back on leaves a house cold at the worst possible time.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 8°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 93 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
New Hampshire has no state license for HVAC contractors.
There is no state license or registration behind an HVAC contractor here, and no statewide list that tracks who does this work. Some states leave a record even when they don't test skill, a business filing, an address on file. New Hampshire doesn't do that either, so there's no state paperwork of any kind standing behind the person who shows up to work on your furnace.
A bad gas connection is the dangerous part of a furnace repair, and no state license stands behind that check here. New Hampshire leaves the job to the contractor doing the work and the homeowner who hired them.
Source: New Hampshire General Court
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often the thermostat isn't calling for heat the way it should, or the furnace isn't getting power. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has working batteries if it uses them. Next check the switch that looks like a light switch near the furnace, sometimes it gets bumped off. If those are fine, the igniter or the flame sensor may have failed, and a contractor will need to test them.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- The furnace is likely running the blower without the burners lit. That happens when the flame sensor is dirty and shuts the burners off right after they start, or when the igniter isn't getting hot enough to light the gas at all. Air moving but not warming up is a burner problem, not a duct problem. With winter lows here averaging 8°F, this isn't something to leave for long.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- The thermocouple is probably worn out. It's the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve the flame is lit, and when it wears out it shuts the gas off even though the pilot is burning fine. A draft blowing out the pilot can also cause this, so check for airflow near the furnace first. If relighting it doesn't hold, the thermocouple needs to be replaced.