Furnace Repair in New Haven, CT

Most no-heat furnace calls come down to a short list. Knowing which one you have changes the bill by an order of magnitude:

• Igniter or flame sensor failure. The furnace clicks, tries, and locks out. This is the single most common winter repair — a modest part and a short visit, typically in the $150–$350 range.
• Blower motor failure. The burner fires but no air moves, or the blower screams and quits. Motors run $400–$800 installed depending on type.
• Control board or thermostat faults. Erratic cycling, a dead display, or a system that ignores the thermostat. A board replacement lands in the $400–$700 range.
• Cracked heat exchanger. The serious one: a cracked exchanger can leak carbon monoxide and ends the furnace’s life. If your tech finds one on a furnace over fifteen years old, that is a replacement conversation, not a repair.

New Haven County furnaces work harder than the national average: long heating seasons, freeze-thaw cycles, and older ductwork in converted homes. Three local realities shape every repair decision:

• Undersized or leaky ducts waste the repair. A new blower pushing air through crushed or disconnected ducts in a finished basement still leaves the far bedrooms cold. Ask the tech to check duct condition, not just the unit.
• Gas vs. oil changes everything. Gas furnaces are the simpler repair; oil furnaces add nozzle, filter, and burner-tune issues, and a neglected annual tune-up is the root cause of a large share of oil no-heat calls.
• Age is a cost, not just a number. A $600 repair on a nineteen-year-old furnace buys months, not years. The rule of thumb: if the repair exceeds half the replacement cost and the unit is past fifteen years, replace.

Replacement typically runs $5,000–$9,000 installed for a high-efficiency gas furnace. The honest framework: repair when the unit is under twelve years old and the fix is a single component; replace when it is past fifteen, when repairs are stacking up year over year, or when a cracked heat exchanger or a dead control board is involved. A contractor who pushes replacement on a ten-year-old furnace with a bad igniter is selling, not diagnosing.