What is Furnace Short Cycling?

A furnace that is suffering from short cycling will be basically turning on and off before it even accomplished it objective which is to provide enough heat to maintain your home warmer, this means that the situation can be pretty dangerous since the furnace will not be capable of providing the required calefaction and heat in important dates of the year where temperatures are very low and those that don’t count with any source of heat is exposed to health issues such as hypothermia, but don’t worry, if you have not faced any short cycling before then you can prevent or avoid it by following some recommendations, just stay tuned to learn more.

Furnace Short Cycling: How to Avoid it.

Method #1: Watch the Flame Sensor.

It’s incredible that one of the common causes of short cycling in furnaces is the flame sensor, something that is very important for the general functionality of the furnace, to put you in context, the flame sensor will be the device or sensor that will determine when raw gas is entering to your gas through the furnace, and when this happens the sensor will immediately stop the working progress to turn off the operation which makes sense, right? But when this flame sensor breaks, it will not be capable of providing legit lectures which will cause a non-functional procedure where the device will turn off a furnace that it’s not even broken at all.

To avoid this problem you just need to watch the flame sensor at least every 3 months of usage and if you don’t feel too comfortable about its working status, then you can always replace it with a brand new one and save problems in the future.

Method #2 Blocked Exhaust Vent.

This one is pretty critical to your safety so you need to be really focused on the explanation. An exhaust vent in a furnace will be capable of disposing of the deadly carbon monoxide that is produced at some point in the procedure, however, if that exhaust vent is blocked for whatever reason (it’s commonly due to bird nests and other relatable stuff) then that carbon monoxide will be stuck inside the furnace, causing it to leak inside your home which can cause serious complications.

To avoid any short cycling or overheating due to this problem, you can clean the exhaust vent when the furnace is turned off, however, if you find a bird nest or bees then you may want to contact a pest specialist to take care of the job, you never know if something ends inside the vent and then everything will be worse than before.

Method #3: Dirty Furnace Filter.

The furnace counts with a component that is called a high-limit switch, which is capable of turning off the furnace if its read hotter temperatures than ever, which means that when your furnace filter is filled with dust or any other dirtiness, then the oven functionality will be more strict since the heat will not be capable of getting out and an overheating problem will be created without you even knowing it, but don’t worry, the solution is very simple, you just need to change your furnace filter if it’s too much work dirtiness to deal with it, and also, to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you ever again, check the filter every single month and clean it if you see any anomaly.

For more information on furnace short cycling, contact Vinny’s Jersey Plumbing, located in Wayne, New Jersey.  We also service other cities in New Jersey, such as Secaucus, Kinnelon and Fair Lawn.