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Home › Blog › Furnace Short Cycling: Why Your Heater Turns On and Off Every Few Minutes

Furnace Short Cycling: Why Your Heater Turns On and Off Every Few Minutes

By the technicians at American Air Conditioning & Heating Repair. Serving all of South Carolina.

Heating repair technician inspecting a furnace in South Carolina

What short cycling looks like

The furnace starts, runs for two to five minutes, shuts off, waits, and starts again. The house never gets warm and the gas bill climbs. Every start-up is the hardest moment for the ignitor, the blower and the heat exchanger, so a short cycling furnace is wearing itself out.

The usual suspects

A dirty flame sensor that cannot prove the flame is lit, so the control board shuts the gas off. A clogged filter causing the limit switch to trip on high temperature. A blocked flue or failed pressure switch. A thermostat mounted near a heat source. And in a surprising number of South Carolina homes, a furnace that is simply too big for the house.

Why oversizing matters here

Our winters are mild, so a furnace sized for a Michigan house will satisfy the thermostat in minutes and shut down before the air has circulated. The fix is not a repair; it is proper sizing at replacement time.

The fix

Start with the filter. If it is clean and the furnace still cycles, schedule furnace repair. Flame sensor cleaning and limit switch replacement are quick jobs, and we check the heat exchanger on every visit.

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