Furnace Question (Update in OP!)

[rubytue]

Increasing the thermostat won't help it blow out warmer air, that one I know for sure. It will just run longer trying to heat up the air.

What is the fuel source for your furnace?

[Ruby Gloom]

Increasing the temp on your thermostat won't do any good; it won't heat the air the furnace puts out, it'll just increase the temp that the furnace is trying to get to. H says if your furnace is putting out heat, it's probably not broken, more than likely it's just an old furnace and an old house that is having a hard time keeping in the heat in such frigid temps.

[papie]

My guess is it just can't keep up. Is your house well insulated?

[rubytue]

Oh good. Just making sure it wasn't something like a heat pump (which won't work in those temps).

A fueled furnace should be blowing warm air even in these temps, bc it's heating the air with fire. -16 is damn cold, but the flame is going to be the same temp. I'd check the pilot light and/or check for a reset button, and failing that, call someone. It could be a number of things, including frozen drain, frozen vent, dead thermocouple, etc. the fact the windchill is so high, while it doesn't effect the temp of the air the furnace is heating, does indicate there is a lot of wind that could be affecting the vent or something.

[papie]

Jan 6, 2014 8:23:08 GMT -5 bricco said:

Jan 6, 2014 8:18:52 GMT -5 papie said:

My guess is it just can't keep up. Is your house well insulated?

Decently, I think!  Our power bills are never overly high and we keep our house set between 70 and 72 pretty much year round. 

But in a normal winter, we rarely drop below 0F, maybe by a few degrees, but nothing like this.

Hmmm I would call someone. We had similar temps last week and my house was stating at the set temperature (68-70) and my insulation sucks. We also rarely get that cold here.

[snipsnsnails]

Do you have a digital thermostat? If you do, check to make sure the batteries are working in it. We had a service tech out once and he was like, "Uhhh, your thermostat went dead." Oops. Ha.

But, your furnace should be "keeping up." Definitely call someone. Hope it's a quick and cheap fix!

[EmilieMadison]

Our air temp right now is -22 with a windchill of -40s, so I feel your very cold pain! Our furnace is keeping up, and yours should be able to. But as snips said, it might be the batteries in your thermostat. If it's going blank, that would be my first guess, and would explain why you're not getting warmer air.

Check back in and let us know that you're not frozen to death!!

[sweetday]

Ditto snips. Try changing the batteries on the thermostat.

[kermit]

Agree with check batteries. I thought I'd changed mine not long ago but it's been having issues with the override feature and new batteries fixed it.

[soozy87]

This exact thing happened to us. The furnace repairman said that it was probably our secondary heat exchanger. On our furnace there is an override button on the inside of the control panel.

[isabel]

That sounds miserable. I really hope it's an easy fix!

[nomad100]

Jan 6, 2014 10:03:10 GMT -5 snipsnsnails said:

Do you have a digital thermostat? If you do, check to make sure the batteries are working in it. We had a service tech out once and he was like, "Uhhh, your thermostat went dead." Oops. Ha.

But, your furnace should be "keeping up." Definitely call someone. Hope it's a quick and cheap fix!

This happens to us at least twice a winter.

We have zoned heat (hot water boiler) with 4 thermostats and couldn't figure out why the kitchen zone was so cold on Sunday morning when the rest of the house was nice and warm.  Turns out the batteries in that thermostat needed replacing.  Whoops!  Thank goodness for my stash of AAA batteries.

Once they were replaced, it started working right away and heating up that side of the house.

[imojoebunny]

Check to make sure your thermostat doesn't have a battery. Ours was doing this not long ago, blanking out, then coming back on. It was an easy fix with a AA battery. I just took the cover off the thermostat, and there was the battery. I don't know what the battery does, but it worked.