Robbins Heating & Air Conditioning Blog : Archive for March, 2022

Where the Furnace Pilot Light Went—And What Replaced It

Monday, March 21st, 2022

furnace-burners-CUWhen people think of standard natural gas furnaces, they often think of the words pilot light. Standing pilot lights became part of gas furnaces back in the 1920s and marked a major improvement in using them at the time. Rather than having to manually light a furnace each time a house needed heat, people could instead turn the furnace on and the standing pilot was at the ready to ignite the gas burners. 

Does the furnace you currently have in your house use a standing pilot light? We’d wager the answer is no. In fact, it’s almost certainly no if your furnace is less than eleven years old. Standing pilot lights started to disappear in the 1980s, and now you’ll mostly find them used on commercial equipment and not in residential heating systems, such as gas furnaces and stoves. What happened to the pilot light? And what has replaced it?

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The Parts of a Gas Furnace That Help It Run Safely

Monday, March 7th, 2022

natural-gas-furnaceOne of our main concerns as an HVAC contractor handling heating in Colorado Springs, CO is ensuring our customers have gas furnaces that run safely through the winter season. Although gas furnaces are built with safety as the top priority, malfunctions can still lead to potential carbon monoxide hazards in a home as well as combustion dangers. 

We want to help you better understand your gas furnace, and in this post we’ll look at the safety features built into it to help it run hazard-free during the season. The more you know about these features, the more you’ll know about when the furnace isn’t running safely. Please don’t try to troubleshoot any of these features yourself or open up the furnace cabinet to tinker with it. Instead, shut off the gas to the furnace and call our technicians. We offer 24-hour emergency service for situations like this.

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