Furnace Repair in Paterson, NJ
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Passaic County will get in touch.
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Eight months of heat, and nights that don't let up
Paterson needs a working furnace from October through May, eight months a year. On winter nights that average 23°F, the furnace is cycling on and off most of the night to keep up. Each cycle means the igniter fires, the burner lights, and the blower pushes that heat through the house. Do that thousands of times a season and the igniter is usually the first thing to wear out. You'll notice it as short cycling, a furnace that tries to start and can't, or a house that's cold when you wake up.
Most homes here heat with gas, so when the furnace goes down there's no backup warming the house while you wait. Power doesn't always hold up through a bad storm either. Passaic County has seen 29 winter storms and 42 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and 11% of households in New Jersey went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. A furnace that's already struggling won't survive an outage on top of it.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 23°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 81%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 29 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $170 a year off heating for a typical Passaic County home.
Estimates for a typical Passaic 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 board tests the contractor and keeps a record of who holds the license, so the person or company working on your furnace has already had to prove they know the trade before they were allowed to take the job. It covers the contractor, not each individual job, so the license does not mean a specific repair was checked or signed off. Because this is a state license, a Passaic County town cannot layer its own HVAC license requirement on top of it.
For a furnace repair, that state license is the thing standing behind the work. Furnaces here mostly run on gas, with 81.4% of homes in Passaic County heating that way, and a gas connection is the part of the job where a mistake actually matters. The license is what New Jersey uses to hold a contractor accountable for getting that connection right.
Sources: New Jersey Legislature · New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to heat and the temperature is set above room temperature, and check the batteries if it uses them. If the thermostat looks fine, check the furnace switch, the one that looks like a light switch near the unit, and make sure the breaker hasn't tripped. Many furnaces also have a door that has to be seated correctly against a safety switch, so if it was recently opened for a filter change, that's worth checking too. If none of that gets it running, a contractor can find out what's stopping it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- If air is moving but it's not warm, the furnace may be running the fan without the burners firing. That happens when the igniter fails, the flame sensor is dirty, or the gas valve isn't opening. A clogged filter can also cause the furnace to overheat and shut the burners off while the fan keeps blowing. If you've checked the thermostat setting and the filter and it's still blowing cold, a contractor will need to look at the ignition system.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- This is almost always 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 as a safety measure, even though the pilot lit for a moment. A draft blowing out the flame can look the same, so check for drafts near the pilot first. If it keeps going out after that, the thermocouple likely needs to be replaced, and that's a job for a contractor since it involves the gas valve.