A gas smell or a carbon monoxide alarm comes before any repair
If you smell gas, leave the house first. Do not switch lights or the thermostat on the way out. From outside, call Enbridge, the gas utility for the Township of Asphodel-Norwood, then call us.
If the carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone outside and call the fire department. Ontario's Fire Code requires a working carbon monoxide alarm next to each sleeping area in any home with a fuel-burning appliance, a fireplace or an attached garage. If yours is older or missing, replace it before the next heating season.
Once the house is safe, the furnace stays off until the cause is found. In older homes that is often a cracked heat exchanger, a blocked flue or a chimney that no longer drafts. Those are not faults to run through the winter.
No heat after a snowfall usually means a buried vent or a frozen drain
The newer homes in Norwood Park, off Albine Street and County Road 40, mostly have high-efficiency condensing furnaces. They breathe in and exhaust through two plastic pipes in the side wall. Bury those pipes and the furnace shuts itself off.
Snow here is not light. Environment Canada's 1981-2010 normals for the Peterborough A station record 151.2 cm of snowfall a year, 40.0 cm of it in January, with snow depths of up to 71 cm in March. Drifts that deep cover side-wall vents.
What you can check: go outside and clear snow and frost from both pipes by hand. Turn the furnace switch off, wait a minute, turn it back on. If it lights and stays lit, that was it.
If it does not, look at the condensate drain. A condensing furnace makes water, and the line that carries it away can freeze or clog. A full trap trips the pressure switch, and the furnace will not light. The technician clears the line, checks the trap and pressure switch, and looks at whether the vent or drain needs to be moved or raised so it does not happen every storm.
No heat in an older village house often traces back to a converted system
Most of Norwood's housing is old. In the 2016 Census, 235 of the 560 occupied homes in the village were built in 1960 or before, and another 165 from 1961 to 1980.
The oldest are on the lots that grew out of Keeler's Mill on the Ouse River. Houses that age were heated with wood or coal, then converted to oil or gas. The furnace in the basement is often a replacement, often larger than the house needs, sitting on ductwork that was added later.
A no-heat call in these houses is commonly a failed hot-surface igniter, a dirty flame sensor, a tripped limit switch or a control board fault. The age of the house adds other things to look at: an old chimney that needs a liner for the appliance on it, ducts that leak into the basement, and old wrap on ducts or pipes that may contain asbestos. If the technician sees material like that, it is pointed out and left undisturbed.
What you can check: the thermostat is set to heat and has working batteries, the furnace switch is on, the breaker has not tripped, and the filter is not packed with dust.
Cold air, short cycling and new noises each have a short list of causes
Cold air from the registers while the blower runs usually means the burners have shut down and the fan is still going. A clogged filter can overheat the furnace and trip the high limit. A dirty flame sensor lets the burners light and then drop out.
Short cycling, where the furnace runs a few minutes and stops, is common in the village with an oversized replacement unit. It heats the house too fast, shuts off and starts again. That wears parts and leaves cold rooms. It can also be a failing limit switch, a restricted return or a thermostat in the wrong spot.
Noises point to parts. A bang on start-up is delayed ignition, usually dirty burners. A squeal or grind is the blower motor or its bearings. A rattle or hum from the side of the cabinet is often the inducer motor.
In Norwood Park Phase 4 and the other newest homes, the parts are young. Problems there tend to come from a system that was not set up and balanced properly, a unit sized wrong for a tightly built house, or ventilation unit filters that were never changed.
The repair visit runs in a set order
The technician starts by asking what the furnace has been doing and when. Then the furnace is tested: ignition sequence, flame, pressures, limits, venting and condensate. You are shown what was found.
You get the repair price in writing and approve it before a part goes in. Some parts have to be ordered; you are told which part and why before anything is booked. Work is performed by TSSA-certified gas technicians, to the CSA B149.1 Natural Gas and Propane Installation Code.
Some furnaces are not worth repairing. If the heat exchanger is cracked or the unit is old and the repair is a large share of a new one, you are told plainly, with both options laid out. See furnace installation and replacement and our guide on what decides the price of a new furnace. Regular maintenance before winter catches many of these faults early.