HVAC Repair in Boston, MA
Homes here need heat from October through May and cooling from July through August. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Suffolk County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Ten months of work a year, most of it in the cold
Your furnace is doing something most of the year here. Heat runs October through May, eight months, and on winter nights that average 23°F it cycles on and off for hours at a stretch. Every one of those starts puts a load on the igniter and the burner. When the igniter finally gives out, the furnace won't light at all, and you find out at night when the house has already gone cold.
Summer is short but it still asks something of the system. Cooling only runs through July and August, with afternoons around 80°F, which means the air conditioner sits idle most of the year and then has to work right the first hot week it's needed. A capacitor or a contactor that quietly failed over the winter shows up as an AC that won't start when you finally flip it on. Add in the storms, 22 winter storms and 140 damaging wind events over the last ten years, and the power outages that come with them, and you have a system that gets pushed hard, then cut off, then asked to start again.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 2 months
- July through August, it cools
- 23°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 80°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace and air conditioner would cut about $220 a year off heating and cooling for a typical Suffolk County home.
Estimates for a typical Suffolk County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Massachusetts fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed.
Replacement makes sense when the furnace's heat exchanger is cracked, the air conditioner's compressor has failed, or repairs keep coming.
- Why is my heat not working?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it is set to heat and the temperature is set above room temperature, and change the batteries if it uses them. If the thermostat looks right, check the breaker for the furnace and the switch that looks like a light switch near the unit, since that shuts it off for service and sometimes gets bumped. A furnace that turns on and then stops after a few minutes often has a dirty filter choking off airflow, so pull the filter and hold it up to a light. If none of that explains it, the igniter or flame sensor may have failed, and that needs a contractor. At 23°F on a winter night here, a furnace that is not running is worth chasing down fast.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- Check the filter first. A filter clogged with dust blocks airflow across the coil, and the coil can ice over, so the system runs but the air coming out barely feels cool. Check the outdoor unit too. If the fan and coil are covered in leaves, grass clippings, or dirt, the system cannot get rid of the heat it is pulling from the house. If the filter is clean and the outdoor unit is clear, the system likely needs a contractor to check the refrigerant charge. Summer afternoons here reach 80°F, and a system losing the fight against that heat usually means one of these two things.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Check the thermostat settings, the batteries in it, and the breaker or switch for the system. These cause a surprising number of no-heat and no-cool calls, and they take a minute to check yourself. Next, check the filter. A filter that is gray and packed with dust restricts airflow enough to cause real problems in both a furnace and an air conditioner. If the outdoor unit is part of the system, look at it for leaves, ice, or anything blocking the fan. Massachusetts sees its share of storms, and about 10% of households here lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024, so if the power went out recently, check whether the system came back on the way it should. Beyond these checks, a contractor will need to look at the specific system to say what is wrong.