Furnace and heating repair in Las Vegas, NV

Las Vegas winters bring cold nights and cool days, so nearly every home needs working heat for a few months. Two setups are common. One is a gas furnace that shares its blower and ducts with the AC, often installed in the attic or a garage closet. The other is a heat pump, which uses the outdoor AC unit in reverse and may have electric heat strips as backup.

Work out which you have before you call, because it shapes the repair. If the outdoor unit runs while the house is heating, it is a heat pump, and the heat pump not heating guide covers the usual causes. A gas line and a metal flue at the indoor unit mean a furnace.

Desert dust and months of sitting idle are hard on heating parts. Flame sensors foul, igniters crack and filters loaded from a summer of AC use choke the airflow. Many no-heat calls on the first cold night trace back to one of those.

These checks cost nothing and solve a fair share of no-heat calls. They are the full list of what is safe to do yourself.

• Set the thermostat to Heat, raise the setpoint a few degrees above room temperature and replace the batteries if it has them.
• Check the breaker panel for a tripped breaker on the furnace, air handler or heat pump. Reset it once. If it trips again, stop and call.
• Find the power switch on or near the furnace or air handler, which looks like a light switch, and make sure it is on.
• Pull the filter. If it is gray and matted, replace it. A clogged filter can make the system overheat and shut itself off.
• Open the supply registers and clear furniture or rugs away from the return grille.
• Clear leaves and debris from around the outdoor unit if you heat with a heat pump.
• Write down any error code on the thermostat or the blinking light pattern visible through the furnace's sight window.

A technician starts by confirming the complaint, then reads fault codes and tests the parts most likely to have failed. On a gas furnace that is usually the igniter, flame sensor, pressure switch, inducer motor or a safety limit that tripped because of poor airflow. On a heat pump it is often a capacitor, contactor, reversing valve, defrost control or a refrigerant problem.

You should get the diagnosis and a price before any repair starts. Ask what failed, why it failed and whether anything else is close behind it. Ask to see the failed part.

Nevada contractors are licensed by the Nevada State Contractors Board. Look the company up before the visit using the Nevada license lookup guide. You can search by license number, company name or the name of a principal.

A part swap normally needs no permit. A furnace or heat pump replacement may, depending on local rules. If the visit turns into a replacement, have the licensed contractor pull any permit. The Board's Residential Recovery Fund excludes work by unlicensed contractors and is not available when the homeowner pulled the permit.

Heating equipment in the desert gets light use, so furnaces here often outlast the AC they are paired with. Repair is usually the right call for a single failed part. Replacement enters the picture when a furnace has a cracked heat exchanger, when a heat pump's compressor has failed, or when the indoor and outdoor equipment are both old and the AC side is failing too.

A cold house is rarely dangerous in a mild winter, but it can be for infants, older adults and anyone who is ill. If you cannot wait, the emergency furnace repair page explains what to do tonight.