For the nights Houston forgets it has weather
Furnace and Heating Repair, Installation and Maintenance
From furnace repairs to heat pump installations, we keep a home warm through whatever January actually decides to do. Same-day heating repair, seasonal maintenance built around it.
What a hot surface igniter is actually telling you
A furnace that won't light usually isn't complicated once someone's standing in front of it. The hot surface igniter should glow a steady orange-white for a few seconds before the gas valve opens; if it glows dim, flickers, or doesn't glow at all, that's the fault, not a mystery. A flame sensor tells a different story. After a season of dust, it can sit right in the flame and still read no flame, because the coating on the rod is insulating it from the current it's supposed to carry. The control board does exactly what it's built to do in that situation: it reads no flame while gas is flowing and closes the valve as a safety response, which looks to an owner like the furnace just stopped rather than what actually happened. Reviewers describe technicians walking through this kind of diagnosis directly. Mary R wrote that Lakota gave a very clear explanation for why a specific part was the cause of the problem, and Derek Engelstad said the same of Zach, that he came across as highly competent as both a technician and an advisor.
Why the vent, the flex line and the relay panel get checked together
A blocked or disconnected vent doesn't always fail loudly. It can hold the pressure switch open so the furnace never gets to the point of trying to ignite at all, no error code, just silence. That's why a repair call treats the gas flex connector, the vent run and the relay panel as one system instead of three separate parts: a fault in any one of them can present as a fault in either of the others, and chasing the wrong one wastes a visit. Furnace installation, furnace repair and furnace maintenance are all handled under one call, along with heat pump installations for anyone switching systems entirely. We offer same-day heating repair and a seasonal maintenance visit built around exactly this kind of check, run before the first real cold snap rather than after it.
NATE certified, ACCA certified, licence TACLB123086E. Answered 24 hours, every day of the year. Call (713) 360-0564.
The furnace that's been off since February behaves differently
Houston doesn't run a furnace nine months of the year. January is our coldest month, and every couple of years a real cold snap pushes it hard enough that a working furnace stops being optional. That gap matters mechanically: a furnace that's sat idle since February fires up carrying a season of dust through the blower wheel and across the burner assembly, which is a different stress than a furnace running daily somewhere colder. It's also exactly when a dusty flame sensor or a dim igniter finally gets found, on the one night everyone actually needs the heat.
A heat pump adds its own twist on a rare near-freezing Houston night: it has to reverse its own cycle to defrost the outdoor coil, which briefly blows cool air indoors while it clears the ice, something an owner unfamiliar with heat pumps can easily mistake for a fault. If that's the system in your attic rather than a gas furnace, see how we handle heat pumps specifically. Either way, the same line answers the call around the clock.