Furnace Repair in Bay City, MI
Furnaces here run from October through May. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Bay County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat puts a lot of miles on your furnace
From October through May your furnace is the thing standing between you and a house at 18 degrees. That's eight months of the burner lighting, running, shutting off, and lighting again, night after night. Each start puts a load on the igniter, and igniters are built to handle only so many of them before they fail. When one goes, the burner won't light at all.
Bay County has seen 12 winter storms and 49 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across Michigan more than a third of households lost power for at least a full day in 2024. Most gas furnaces need electricity to run the blower and controls, so when the power drops in the middle of a cold snap, your furnace stops with it even though the gas is still there.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 18°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 78%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 12 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $150 a year off heating for a typical Bay County home.
Estimates for a typical Bay County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Michigan fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed and the heat exchanger is sound.
Replacement makes sense when the heat exchanger is cracked or the furnace keeps needing parts.
Michigan requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Board of Mechanical Rules is the one testing and keeping record of the contractor, and that license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job they do. So the credential you're checking exists before this repair and stays after it, tied to the business, not the furnace.
For a furnace repair, that license is what stands behind the work. A gas furnace has a gas connection, and a loose or wrong one is the dangerous part of the job. In Bay County, 78% of homes heat with gas, so that connection is a routine part of the work here, not a rare exception. The state licensing covers that.
Sources: Michigan Legislature · Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most often the thermostat isn't calling for heat the way you think it is, or power isn't reaching the furnace. Check that the thermostat is set below room temperature and has fresh batteries if it uses them. Next check the furnace switch, the one that looks like a light switch near the unit, and the breaker at your panel. If those are fine, the igniter or a safety switch inside the furnace may have failed, and that calls for a licensed contractor to open it up and test it.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- If air is moving but it's not warm, the furnace may be running the blower without the burners lighting. That points to an ignition problem, a flame sensor that's not sensing flame, or a gas supply issue. It can also mean the furnace is in the middle of its startup cycle and the blower kicked on before the burners caught, which should sort itself out in under a minute. If cold air keeps blowing past that, turn the thermostat fan setting to auto instead of on, and if it still won't heat, have a contractor check the ignition system.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A pilot that won't stay lit usually means the thermocouple has worn out. That's the small metal rod that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to stay open. When it fails, the valve reads no flame even when there is one, and it shuts the gas back off. A draft blowing out the pilot or a dirty pilot orifice can cause the same thing, so a licensed contractor should check the pilot assembly before replacing parts.