Emergency Heater Repair in Tacoma, WA

A no-heat call at 9 p.m. in February is a different situation from a scheduled tune-up, and it gets handled differently. The priority is getting a clear picture of what the system is doing, confirming there is no safety issue in play, and restoring heat if the repair can be completed on the visit.

Call right away if any of this is happening

• No heat and falling indoor temperatures
• A persistent burning, acrid or electrical smell from vents or equipment
• A breaker that trips every time the heating system starts
• A boom or whoosh when the burner lights
• Visible scorching, soot or water around the equipment
• A system that locks out, resets and locks out again
• Household members who are elderly, very young, or medically sensitive to cold

Safety first — gas, combustion and electrical

Some situations are not repair calls until someone else has cleared them. If you smell gas or a strong sulfur or rotten-egg odor, leave the area and call your gas utility or 911 from outside before anything else. If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone outside into fresh air and call 911. If you see arcing, scorched wiring or smoke, shut the system off at the breaker if you can do so safely, and treat it as an electrical emergency. We would much rather arrive after the utility or fire department than have you wait for us in an unsafe house.

Checks you can safely make before we arrive

Confirm the thermostat is set to heat and several degrees above the room temperature, and replace the batteries if the display is blank. Check the breaker panel for a tripped heating breaker and reset it once. Make sure the furnace or air handler service switch — often a light-switch-looking toggle nearby — is on, and that the access panel is fully seated, since a loose blower door opens a safety switch. Pull the filter and replace it if it's dark and loaded. Open closed supply registers and clear anything blocking return grilles. If none of that restores heat, stop there and call.

Staying warm safely while you wait

Close doors to rooms you aren't using, keep curtains closed at night, and gather into one or two rooms. Never heat a home with a gas range, oven, charcoal grill or any unvented fuel-burning appliance — carbon monoxide from those sources is the reason no-heat nights occasionally turn into emergencies. If you use a portable electric heater, plug it directly into a wall outlet, keep three feet of clearance around it, and turn it off when you sleep or leave.

Where the fault usually is

After-hours no-heat calls concentrate in a few places: ignition components on gas furnaces, elements and sequencers on electric systems, blower motors and capacitors, and safety switches opening because airflow is restricted. See furnace repair, electric heater repair and heat pump repair for the detail, and our guide on what to do when your heater stops working at night walks through the whole evening step by step.