Furnace Repair in Dover, NH
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Strafford County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and nights near 16 above zero
Dover asks a lot of a furnace. Heat runs from October through May, eight months of the year, and on winter nights that average 16°F the burner is cycling on and off for hours at a stretch. Each cycle is another strike of the igniter and another round of metal expanding and contracting inside the cabinet.
42.5% of homes here heat with fuel oil, and an oil furnace needs a clean nozzle and a strong spark to light on a cold start. Ten years of records show 44 winter storms and 43 damaging wind events in this area, and statewide, 22% of households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024. When the power drops on a night this cold, the furnace stops with it, and the house starts losing heat right away.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 16°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 44 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.
New Hampshire does not put a license or a registration behind an HVAC contractor's name. There is no state exam, no state list to check them against, and no state board that took a complaint if the work goes wrong. Whatever a contractor tells you about their training or experience is not something New Hampshire checked first.
A furnace repair means someone is working around a gas connection, and that connection is the part that can hurt someone if it is done wrong. In Strafford County, as everywhere in New Hampshire, that work does not carry a state license behind it.
Source: New Hampshire General Court
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often it's the thermostat not calling for heat, a tripped breaker, or a safety switch that's stopped the furnace from firing. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has power. If the breaker is fine and it still won't start, a contractor will need to check the igniter, the flame sensor, and the door switch, since any one of them can keep the furnace from turning on at all. With winter nights here averaging 16°F, this isn't one to leave for later.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- If air is moving but it isn't warm, the furnace may be running the blower without the burners lighting, or the burners may be shutting off right after they start. A dirty flame sensor is a common cause of that second problem. It's also worth checking the thermostat fan setting. If it's set to 'on' instead of 'auto', the blower runs constantly and will blow room-temperature air between heating cycles, which can feel cold in a house that needs heat eight months of the year.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This usually comes down to the thermocouple, the small sensor that tells the gas valve the pilot is burning. When it wears out or sits out of position, the valve shuts the gas off and the pilot goes out. A draft blowing across the pilot or a dirty pilot orifice can cause the same problem. A contractor can test the thermocouple and clean or adjust the pilot assembly to fix it.