Your heating system is a critical part of your home, providing warmth when you need it. But when things go wrong with the heat in your home, there are a few common problems that often happen. Here are four major types of heating repairs and what causes them.

Preheat Problems

One of the most common issues is known as preheat failure. When this occurs, your heater will turn on but not provide any heat to the house. In order to fix this problem, you'll need to check the safety controls and limit switches in your furnace. These parts can get stuck or corroded over time, which means they aren't allowing fire inside the furnace when it's time for heat production. If this is the problem, you should call in a HVAC contractor to fix it by taking the safety controls and switch covers off and cleaning them with a wire brush.

Main Gas Valves

When your gas valves fail completely, all heat production shuts down and your entire system will stop working. If you smell gas, shut off the fuel supply and call a professional. This problem is most often caused by poorly calibrated or improperly set pressure relief valves, which allow excess pressure to get past faulty safety controls in your furnace. Since this type of failure ultimately shuts down all heat production, it's best handled with a professional available to make sure there isn't any damage done before restarting the heating unit again.

Frozen Heat Exchanger

Also known as a cold indoor coil, frozen condenser coils can greatly reduce your home's ability to stay warm and cause significant strain on your air conditioning unit while also adding frost across exterior walls and windows when things get too cold inside. Fortunately, preventing these problems can be as easy as wrapping your heat exchanger in insulation, which will keep it safe from temperature swings. If the problem is already too severe for this solution to work, you'll need to contact a technician to repair the system. 

Leaking Heat Exchanger

When your furnace starts leaking oil around the heat exchanger, it's time for some immediate repair work. The problem with these leaks is that they're often destructive over time, eventually rusting through steel components that can't be repaired safely once compromised. Unfortunately, this type of issue requires that the entire unit be replaced instead of simply fixing what leakages there may be at hand. This job is best handled by a professional who has experience with replacing damaged heat exchangers.

Don't forget to have your system inspected every year by a licensed technician, which will allow you to catch problems early on before they can cause any lasting damage or inconvenience. If you aren't sure about what kind of heating repairs are needed for your system, consider contacting an HVAC contractor who is experienced in diagnosing and fixing all common issues for homeowners.