Emergency HVAC in Milwaukee

No Heat

Before calling, check the obvious: thermostat batteries and setting, the furnace or boiler switch that looks like a light switch nearby, the breaker, and the filter. A blocked filter is a genuinely common cause of a furnace that starts and shuts down repeatedly.

On a boiler system, check system pressure on the gauge — a system that has lost pressure will not circulate. Radiators cold at the top and warm at the bottom usually means trapped air rather than a failure.

Frozen pipes are the risk that turns a heating failure into a much larger problem, and Milwaukee housing is particularly exposed to it. Supply lines run through unheated basements, along exterior walls and behind cabinets on north-facing kitchens, and those are the runs that freeze first once a house starts cooling. Opening cabinet doors under sinks and leaving a tap running slightly are worth doing early rather than once the house is already cold.

For a boiler system there is an additional consideration, because the heating water is itself in the pipes. A boiler that has stopped in a house that then drops below freezing risks damage to the radiators and the loops as well as to the plumbing — which is why a no-heat call on a hydronic system in January is treated as more urgent than the same call on forced air.

Carbon monoxide deserves its own line, because the conditions that cause a heating failure and the conditions that cause a venting problem overlap. A blocked flue, a cracked heat exchanger or a chimney that has stopped drafting can all present as poor heat rather than as anything alarming. Working alarms on every floor are the only thing that reliably distinguishes the two, and they are worth testing at the start of the season rather than during it.

If you smell gas, leave and call We Energies from outside. If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, leave and call the fire department; do not go looking for the source.

More on this: furnace repair.