How Does My Furnace’s Gas Valve Work?
The gas valve on your furnace is one of the most important parts! Without it, your house would be quite cold!
To tell if the gas valve to your furnace is bad, you can do the following:
- Turn off your furnace’s gas supply, turn the thermostat up and check to see if there is no flame.
- Check the pilot light to see if there is gas flowing to it, set the thermostat to below room temperature and wait a minute to see if there is a flame.
- Set the gas knob to “ON” if the burner doesn’t turn on, set the thermostat above room temperature and perform a voltage test.
If you do not have the correct furnace knowledge or tools, you may want to have an HVAC technician perform these tests for you to determine if the gas valve on your furnace is bad and needs to be replaced. To get your furnace repaired, call us today.
If your gas regulator fails, it can lead to an excess of gas inside your home. Gas regulators are designed to identify when your furnace is lit to either enable or halt the supply of gas. If your furnace’s gas regulator fails, it can lead to a health and safety risk. To ensure that your gas regulator does not fail unexpectedly, you should have your furnace regularly inspected and maintained. To learn more about getting your furnace’s gas regulator inspected or repaired, contact us today.
In some instances you can repair a gas valve on a furnace depending on what is causing it to not work properly. However, repairing your gas valve is not usually the most cost effective option since it can be just as expensive to have your gas valve repaired as it would be to have your entire gas valve replaced. Replacing your gas valve will also ensure that your gas valve doesn’t malfunction again later on. To find out more about getting your furnace repaired, give us a call today.
The gas valve on your furnace is one of the most important parts.
It is ultimately responsible for delivering an adjusting the flow of gas pressure to your furnace to keep it lit when running.
A gas valve replacement is a common furnace repair in older furnaces or when a gas leak is present.
Let’s take a look at the different kinds and how they work to keep your home warm in the winter!
Types of Gas Valves
Combination gas valve: This type of gas valve was introduced around the 1960s.
A combination gas valve contains a handle, a thermocouple, a regulator, and a solenoid valve.
In essence, it contains everything needed for the operation of a gas fired furnace.
Gas chain: These types of gas valves are quite common and require the operator to manually turn a valve to open or close the flow of gas to the furnace.
Once opened by the user, the solenoid valve will only open to allow gas to flow when the furnace actually calls for heat.
Otherwise, you’d have a non-stop flow of gas into your home!
A safety switch will only remain open if the thermocouple is heated to a minimum temperature, verifying the furnace is actually in heating mode.
How The Gas Valve Works
The furnace’s gas valve is operated by electromagnets.
There are two different valve’s that work in time with each other to provide the right amount of gas to your furnace.
The safety valve is what actually supplies the gas to the pilot light that will ignite the furnace burners during operation.
The other valve, the main valve, is what permits gas to be delivered to the burners themselves.
Your furnace has it’s own built in safety system via the thermocouple.
This little rod basically lets the gas valve know whether or not combustion (fire) is actually happening or not and whether the gas valve should remain open or closed.
If the thermocouple does not maintain a certain temperature, it knows that no combustion (fire) is happening and the gas valve closes to prevent gas from just leaking into your home for no reason.
