By the year 2016, about 97% of the American population depended on electric and gas furnaces as their primary heating solutions.
Only about 3% of the population depended on other fuel options in their homes. The popularity around the use of furnaces is due to their high level of efficiency while operating without a chimney.
Homes that use furnaces are warm and cozy during winters, something that makes a furnace an essential component in your home.
Like most other home appliances, your furnace is prone to operational failures at times. Furnace noise is the most critical indicator of a problem with your heating system.
Have you been experiencing noises from your furnace and have no idea why such sounds are frequent? Well, here is a guide to all the furnace noises you are likely to experience at home and what they mean.
1. Loud Bangs
If you hear a loud banging noise coming from your furnace, this could be a sign of trouble.
You need to turn off the furnace right away before doing anything else. One of the main reasons for the loud bangs could be that there are dirty burners within the furnace system.
Dirty burners can cause gas buildup in the ignition, which affects the regular operation of the furnace.
The other likely concern would be the expansion and the contraction of the vents. Such extreme reactions may be due to temperature change within the furnace system.
In any case, the first thing to do should be to clean up your burners. This would help deal with the dirty burners and reduce gas build up around the ignition.
You should consider calling in an expert first to identify the cause of the loud bangs, then take the necessary actions.
The need for urgent professional intervention is to ensure that there’s a reduction of the risk of internal equipment knocking over each other. If not resolved as a matter of urgency, such a situation may lead to a cracked heat exchanger.
Calling in the expert helps reduce the risk of further damage to the system.
2. Screeching Furnace Noise Is a Sign of a Bigger Problem
Screeching is the other typical sound you ought to pay attention to when dealing with your furnace. Often, your furnace will make a screeching sound. Such screeching sounds are a consequence of unlubricated bearings.
Has your furnace bearings been lubricated in recent times?
If not, then it’s highly likely that you’ll tend to experience such screeching noises every so often. These high pitched squealing sounds will not go away any time soon as long as the bearings are not lubricated.
At best, you may need to call in an HVAC specialist to assess the bearing and the belts within the system.
Once the assessment has been done, the most likely suggestion would lubricate the bearings and the straps. Without such timely interventions, you may stand the risk of such belts and bearings grinding to a halt.
An HVAC expert will lubricate the furnace blower bearings and oil the belts to ensure that the motor noise doesn’t recur.
3. Wheezing or Whooshing
Your best believe that that wheezing sound is not anyone who has Asthma.
If anything, it’s your furnace system that requires some necessary checkup.Homeowners give hallowing tales of how these wheezing sounds may be confused for a ghost invasion.
Whooshing or wheezing often emanates from the furnaces’ filters.
The furnace filters are responsible for cleaning or purifying the air entering the system. As such, they may be prone to the accumulation of dust in some cases which leads to furnace making high pitched noise
If the wheezing and whooshing have been consistent, then you may need to assess the furnace filter. Prescriptively, you can clean up the filter, but you may need the intervention of an HVAC technician to deal with the situation.
A more permanent solution would be to change the filters.
Changing your air filters every month can be a sure way of dealing with such wheezing sound permanently. Further, you should consider scheduling maintenance often, to ensure that the areas around the air filter don’t accumulate unnecessary dust or dirt.
4. Pinging Noise
You don’t have to be a genius to detect those pinging noises that emanate from the ducts.
The furnace design is such that the pipes act as pathways through which the air is circulated. The tubes also help in the regulation of warm air in and out of the AC system.
The pinging noise should, therefore, not raise much of an alarm to you. Most times, it’s a reaction to the expansion and the shrinkage of the ducts as the temperatures change. Such noises could be because of the lack of insulation around the ductwork.
While the ping noise is not much of a problem, you may need to call in experts to help you with the insulation. Once the ductwork has been insulated, and it is probable that the pinging sound would reduce significantly.
5. Crackling Sound
Crackling noise in the middle of a silent night can be rattling if not annoying.
However, once in a while, you may end up experiencing intermittent instances of crackling noises from the furnace. In other cases, the crackling sound emanates from the ductwork, which may be easy to detect.
If the instances of crackling noises occur more each time and your furnace turns off, then the issue may be with the ducts. You need to assess the pipes and other metal parts to see if there could be a problem with the cooling process. You can also pay attention to the timing of the sound if it occurs persistently during the operations.
You should consider calling in HVAC professionals to help you detect and trace the source of the crackling sound.
There could be many reasons why the sound is coming in in intermittent paces. Your best bet would be that it’s just the ducts cooling off.
If the ducts are not the problem, then it could also mean that you have a more significant problem in your hands.
You need to call in experts to assess the issue at hand before it escalates into more significant issues. There needs to be immediate diagnostics of the matter to ensure that the source is detected.
Some of these noises you may consider subtle can be the cause of furnace break down eventually. You need to call in a Carrier Furnace specialist to troubleshoot the issue as a matter of urgency.
6. Low- Pitched Growl
Such noise may require a very keen listener. At times you need to wake up in the silence of the night and pay attention to your furnace system. That way, you can detect and decipher the noises coming from the system.
Low pitched growls may be so subtle that you may end up not noticing them.
If you detect such growls, they may be an indication of combustion occurring in the system. Your furnace ends up having to undertake additional burning due to the existence of dirty gas burners.
On the same note, the low pitched growls may be due to the displacement of the pilot light.
Regardless of the probable cause of the low-pitched growl, you are required to call in a professional to assess the situation. If the issue is with the dirty burners, you may consider cleaning or replacing them.
If the problem is with the misplaced pilot light, then you can seek expert advice on how to correct the error.
7. Ignition Roll-Out
This is the least common noise in the furnace system but can occur when the flame is too big. The roll-out sound may be a result of a gas ignition problem. While this sound is rare, it presents the worst possibility of significant problems within the system.
You may consider calling in a professional at this point. The expert will assess the consequence when the furnace door is opened or closed. This assessment helps detect the source of the flame and the resulting roll-out sound.
Once the assessment is complete, the expert can offer you a probable cause of the furnace noise. You may also get to understand the actual extent of the problem and find a solution.
8. Oil-Canning Noise
Ducts located in crawl places, attics, and inside walls may be the cause of oil-canning noises.
If the pipes in your system are undersized, then such instances of oil canning noise may be shared. The reduction of airflow in such ducts may be the cause of these sounds.
If the duct is installed erroneously, then you stand the risk of experiencing such sounds. You may need to call in an expert to replace or reinstall the ductwork if the furnace noise persists.
That Sound Maybe a Tell-Tale Sign of a Bigger Problem
Often, furnaces run seamlessly when the system is functioning normally. However, if you begin to detect intermittent instances of sound or noises, then it may be an indication of a bigger problem.
You can call in an HVAC specialist who will assess the system and help you detect the underlying issues.
Do not wait until the issue affects the system. It would help if you paid attention to such furnace noise and act accordingly.
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