A very common furnace issue, especially during the coldest winter days, is experiencing your furnace turning on and off seemingly without purpose. When furnaces turn on and off, it’s known to HVAC experts as ‘short cycling’; short cycling is exactly what its name suggests, it’s basically when something is interrupting your furnace from properly doing its job and running a full cycle. If you don’t know the cause of the short cycling, this can be extremely frustrating, here’s what you need to know about your furnace turning on and off.

How To Know If Your Furnace Is Short Cycling
It’s normal for a furnace to switch on and off during the course of an hour, however, short cycling occurs when a furnace is switching on and off far quicker than necessary, effectively making the “on” periods useless. A normal cycle for your furnace may turn on for about five or more minutes before turning off, but during a short cycle a furnace may only turn on anywhere between a few seconds and two minutes: this is not enough time to be effective. To be sure your furnace is short cycling, you can time the period in which it is active.

Why Is My Furnace Short Cycling?
Unfortunately, there isn’t just one hard and fast reason as to why your furnace may be turning on and off or short cycling. However, there are some very common reasons as to why this may happen including:

• Furnace overheating
• Furnace’s flame switch is dirty/obstructed
• Broken furnace motor
• Broken thermostat
• Poor ventilation
• Furnace is oversized or undersized for your home

What To Do If Your Furnace Is Short Cycling
If you are not an HVAC expert and your furnace begins to short cycle by turning on and off quite quickly, it’s best that you call the experts at Fahrhall to come take a look. This will prevent any further damage to your system, as well as keep you safe from attempting repair. A short cycling furnace is a very common and fixable issue for HVAC experts, and we can have your home back to warm and cozy in no time.

Can’t figure out why your furnace is turning on and off?
Contact Fahrhall and let our home comfort specialists get to the bottom of it.

Fahrhall has been proudly serving the home comfort needs of the Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent regions for over 50 years. Our team of HVAC experts is dedicated to providing our customers with quality service and equipment.

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