Furnace not heating
Furnace not heating? Read its light or code for your model
Stop first: these are not a code to look up
If you smell gas
Leave the building now. Do not touch light switches or use a phone inside. From outside, call your gas supplier, or the fire department if you cannot reach them.
If a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm is sounding, or someone feels sick
Get everyone outside into fresh air now, then call 911 or the fire department from outside.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's words (none of the furnace makers' documents held here prints what to do when a CO alarm sounds):
- "Never ignore an alarming CO alarm! It is warning you of a potentially deadly hazard."
- "If the alarm signal sounds do not try to find the source of the CO:"
- "Immediately move outside to fresh air."
- "Call your emergency services, fire department, or 911."
- "After calling 911, do a head count to check that all persons are accounted for. DO NOT reenter the premises until the emergency services responders have given you permission. You could lose consciousness and die if you go in the home."
- "If the source of the CO is determined to be a malfunctioning appliance, DO NOT operate that appliance until it has been properly serviced by trained personnel."
If you see flame while the thermostat is not calling for heat
This is a stop condition. Do not reset or restart the furnace. Call a technician or your gas supplier now.
If a reset button on the furnace tripped again after it was pushed
Do not push it again. Call a technician.
Answer the safety questions first. Then say what you see on the furnace without opening it, and which furnace it is. The code is read from the table the maker prints for that model's board, and quoted with its page. Nothing here asks you to open the furnace.
Pick your furnace's maker
Questions
What should I do if my furnace smells like gas?
Leave the building now. Do not touch light switches or use a phone inside. From outside, call your gas supplier, or the fire department if you cannot reach them. Do not look up a code first.
Why does this page ask for the model before it reads a code?
Because the same number of blinks can mean different things on different boards from one maker. The documents held here show it in several families, among them York, Goodman, Lennox, Allied and Nordyne: a count that is a stop condition on one board means something else on another. So a code is read only from the table printed for your model's series, and where two held documents for that series print one code with the same meaning (a misspelling or a unit written two ways) it is answered once and both are cited, while where their meanings differ it asks which unit you have and never guesses.
Can I reset the furnace myself?
This page gives no reset step. Where a maker's table prints reset words for a code, they are shown as the manual's words for a technician. Rheem's installation instructions print "DO NOT jumper or reset this switch" for its rollout switches. If a reset button on the furnace trips again, stop and call a technician. Nothing here asks anyone to open a door.