This county gets hit
Tazewell County logged 261 severe weather events between 2015 and 2024, including 154 damaging wind events, 82 hail events and 15 tornadoes. That is a lot of chances for something outside to take a hit.
Furnace Maintenance in Pekin, IL
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Takes about a minute. No obligation.
Step 1 of 3: Equipment
What it means for your furnace
A furnace itself sits indoors, but the weather still reaches your heating setup through the power that runs it. In 2024, 16% of Illinois households went at least a day without power. A furnace with a bad igniter or a clogged flue is a worse problem to find out about once the power's back on and the temperature's already dropped.
Furnaces in Tazewell County start running in October.
Get yours checked in September, before it has to work.
Three out of four furnaces here burn gas, and that burner needs a yearly check, not just a clean filter
Half the homes in Tazewell County were built in 1969 or earlier. Whatever furnace is in the house now, it has likely been swapped out at least once since then, and the ductwork and gas line connecting to it have been there a long time either way. A yearly check gives someone a chance to look at the connections and the venting before a small leak or a cracked heat exchanger turns into a bigger problem once the cold sets in. None of this means an older house has something wrong with it. It means nobody has looked in a while, and looking is the only way to find out.
Get it checked before the power and the cold both go out on you
A furnace that's been checked has one less way to fail when the power drops. Get it looked at before the storms start and the cold sets in, and you've got one less thing to worry about when both hit at once.
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Years in the same house, one look a year
A furnace that's been running in the same house a long time has had years to develop a small gap in the ductwork or a loose fitting at the gas line. A yearly check catches that while it's still a loose fitting, not a breakdown once the cold sets in and the furnace is running every day. If the system in your house has never been looked at, this is the year to start.
The furnace runs longer than it should to reach the same temperature
A burner that's falling out of tune, a blower wheel caked with dust, or a flame sensor coated in residue all make the furnace work harder to do the same job. The thermostat still says the same number, but the running time creeps up. Left alone, that strain is what wears out an igniter or a blower motor before its time.
The flame looks wrong, or the furnace smells different when it kicks on
A gas flame should burn steady and blue. If it's flickering, yellow, or uneven, the burner isn't getting the right mix of air and gas, and that's worth a look before the furnace runs every day straight through winter. A burning dust smell the first time it fires after months off is normal and fades. A smell that lingers, or one that's sharp instead of dusty, is not something to wait out.
A quick tune-up gets the filter swapped and calls it done. A thorough one starts with the burner itself, pulled apart enough to see the flame pattern on each port, not just glanced at through the viewing window. The flue and vent connections get checked for a solid seal, since a loose joint there is how exhaust ends up somewhere it shouldn't. Someone should test the limit switch and the flame sensor instead of just wiping them off, because a sensor that reads dirty but tests fine is a different problem than one that's actually failing. The blower wheel gets looked at for dust buildup, which throws off airflow even when the filter is clean. A real check also means running the furnace through a full cycle and watching how it starts, runs and shuts off, not just confirming it turns on. If the visit takes the same ten minutes every year regardless of what they find, that's worth noticing.
A tune-up is a sequence, not a glance. The technician checks the ignition system first, watching whether the igniter glows evenly or the pilot lights clean, since a weak start is what strands a furnace on the coldest morning. Next comes the heat exchanger, inspected for cracks or corrosion, because that's the part separating the flame from the air moving through the house. The gas pressure gets measured and adjusted at the valve, since too much or too little throws off the whole burn. Electrical connections get tightened, since a loose wire causes the kind of intermittent fault that's hard to diagnose later. The condensate line, on a furnace that has one, gets cleared so it doesn't back up and trip a safety switch mid-cycle. Each of these fails quietly on its own. A tune-up is what catches them before the furnace has to run every day on whatever shape it's in.
