Heating · Fox Valley & western suburbs
In a climate that hits below zero, a dead furnace is an emergency — for your comfort first and your pipes soon after. We treat it that way.
Furnace failures have signatures. A furnace that clicks but never lights is telling a different story than one that lights and dies ninety seconds later, or one that runs while the vents blow cold. Our diagnostics read those signatures — ignition sequence, flame sensor, pressure switches, inducer, blower, control board — until the actual fault shows itself.
The two photos on this page are real finds from local calls: thermostat wire chewed bare by rodents, and a disconnect box packed with a nest, occupant included. Neither shows up on a thermostat display, and both had been causing 'mystery' intermittent failures. Diagnosis means actually looking.
Safety rides along on every visit. Gas equipment earns non-negotiable scrutiny: heat exchanger condition, venting integrity, combustion quality. A repair that leaves a safety question unanswered is not a finished repair.
Flame sensors and igniters are cheap fixes at any age — we make them and move on. But a cracked heat exchanger, dead control board, or failed inducer on a furnace pushing twenty years is a different conversation, and we have it honestly: repair total versus replacement with the current $175 furnace special and financing options side by side.
No-heat calls get priority dispatch in freezing weather. We know exactly what a cold house in this climate risks, and we schedule like it.
Good to know
Classic flame-sensor behavior: the sensor is too coated to prove the flame exists, so the control board kills the gas for safety. It is one of the most common winter calls and usually a quick fix — but the same symptom can come from venting or pressure-switch problems, so we test rather than assume.
Depends when. Briefly at startup is normal on many systems. Continuously usually means the burners never lit (ignition failure), the limit switch opened from overheating (often a filthy filter), or the thermostat fan setting is on ON instead of AUTO.
Yes — Goodman, Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Rheem, Amana, Bryant, and the rest. The common failure parts ride on the truck.
Bad. Every ignition cycle is the hardest moment of a furnace's life, and short cycling multiplies them while wasting gas. It also usually signals overheating, which is how heat exchangers crack. Worth fixing promptly.
Talk to a real local team about your heating, cooling, or indoor air problem — no call centers, no runaround.
Or email support@apex-climate-control.com · Financing available with credit scores as low as 550