Furnace Repair in Hackensack, NJ
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Bergen County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of winter asks a lot of your furnace
Hackensack needs heat from October through May. That is eight months of the burner cycling on and off, night after night, to keep up with winter lows that average 25°F. Most homes here run on gas furnaces, so that burner and its igniter are doing the work most of the year, not just a few cold snaps.
All that cycling wears on the parts that start the heat. The igniter can weaken. The flame sensor can foul. Either one can leave a furnace that won't light, or one that lights and then shuts itself off. Bergen County has also logged 34 winter storms and 155 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and the outages that come with them can knock a furnace out with nothing else wrong. Statewide, 11% of New Jersey households lost power for 24 hours or more in 2024. When the power comes back, a gas furnace with electronic ignition has to relight and reset on its own. That is often when a homeowner finds out a part had already been failing before the storm hit.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 25°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 77%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 34 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $160 a year off heating for a typical Bergen County home.
Estimates for a typical Bergen County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, New Jersey fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed and the heat exchanger is sound.
Replacement makes sense when the heat exchanger is cracked or the furnace keeps needing parts.
New Jersey requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state license is tied to the contractor, not to each job, so the same license covers a furnace repair in Bergen County or anywhere else in New Jersey. It comes from the State Board of Examiners of Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractors, and no town or city in New Jersey can layer on its own separate license requirement. Whoever holds the license has been tested and is on record with the state.
Most homes in Bergen County heat with gas, and a furnace repair often means working on a gas connection. That is the part of the job where a bad seal or a loose fitting turns dangerous, and it is exactly what the state license is meant to stand behind here. There is no separate county or city sign-off layered on top of it.
Sources: New Jersey Legislature · New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it is set to heat and the temperature is set above room temperature, and check the batteries if it has any. If the thermostat looks right, check the power switch on the furnace itself, which looks like a light switch near the unit, and check that the breaker hasn't tripped. A furnace that still won't start after that has a problem inside it, in the ignition system or the control board, and that calls for a contractor to look at it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often the furnace is still starting up and hasn't warmed the air yet, so give it a few minutes before you worry. If cold air keeps coming, check that the thermostat fan setting is on auto, not on. A fan set to on runs all the time, even between heating cycles, and it will blow room-temperature air when the burner isn't firing. If the fan is set to auto and you're still getting cold air, the furnace may not be igniting at all, and that needs a contractor to diagnose.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A pilot light that won't stay lit usually points to the thermocouple, the small part that senses the pilot flame and keeps gas flowing to it. When it wears out or sits out of position, it reads the flame as out and shuts the gas off even though the pilot is burning. A draft blowing across the pilot can cause the same problem, so check whether air is reaching it from a vent or window. If the flame relights and goes out again on its own, the thermocouple likely needs replacing, and that's a job for a licensed contractor.