What to Check When Your Furnace Won’t Turn On in Altoona
The first cold night in Blair County is usually when a furnace picks its moment. You push the thermostat up, wait, and nothing happens. No click, no burner, no warm air.
Some reasons a furnace will not turn on take five minutes and a flashlight to rule out. Others are ignition, gas or venting faults that belong to a licensed technician. Knowing which one you are looking at saves you a call, or tells you to make one now.
Riley, Inc. has worked on heating in Altoona since 1933. Our technicians service hot air, hydronic, steam and radiant systems, so the checks below cover more than one kind of heat.
Before anything else
If you smell gas, or a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding, stop reading. Get everyone out of the building. Do not flip switches, use a phone indoors, or try to restart the equipment. Once you are outside, call 911 and your gas utility’s emergency line.
Everything below assumes the furnace is simply not running, with no gas odor and no alarm.
Five checks you can make yourself
Work through these in order. Each one rules out a common cause, and all five are safe to do without opening anything sealed.
- The thermostat. Confirm it is set to HEAT, not OFF, AUTO cooling or FAN. Push the setpoint five degrees above the room temperature and listen. If the display is blank or faint, change the batteries. If it runs on a schedule, check that a program or a vacation hold is not keeping it down.
- The furnace switch. There is a light switch, usually on or beside the unit and often at the top of the basement stairs, that cuts power to the furnace. It gets flipped by accident more often than you would think, especially in a basement where someone has been carrying boxes.
- The breaker. Find the furnace circuit in your panel. A tripped breaker sits between ON and OFF. Push it fully to OFF, then back to ON. If it trips again, leave it off and call. A breaker that will not hold is telling you something.
- The filter. Pull it and hold it up to a light. If you cannot see light through it, replace it. A blocked filter starves the blower, the heat exchanger runs hot, and the high limit switch shuts the furnace down to protect it. That looks exactly like a furnace that will not start.
- The blower door. The access panel has a safety switch behind it. If the door is not seated and latched, the furnace will not fire at all. Press it home and listen for the latch.
On a high-efficiency furnace, one more: look for the condensate drain and its trap. These units make water when they run, and a clogged drain or a full condensate pump will lock the furnace out. Standing water around the base of the unit is the sign.
If you have other gas appliances, check one. A water heater or range that also has no gas points at the supply rather than the furnace, and that is a call to the utility.
Signs the problem is past a homeowner check
Stop at this point and book a technician if you see any of the following.
- The furnace tries to light, runs for a few seconds, then shuts down, over and over. That is a lockout, and the control board is reporting a fault it wants read.
- The blower runs but the air is cold.
- The burner flame is yellow and lazy rather than steady and blue.
- You hear the ignitor or inducer motor but the burner never lights.
- There is soot, scorching or rust around the burner compartment or the flue.
- The unit is short cycling, turning on and off every few minutes.
- A breaker trips again after you reset it once.
None of these are repairs to attempt from a video. Gas, combustion and venting faults are what put carbon monoxide in a house when they are handled wrong, and the lockout you are looking at is the safety control doing its job.
Hot air, hydronic, steam and radiant: what to check by system
Not every home in Altoona is heated by a hot air furnace. Riley services hydronic, radiant, steam and hot air systems, and the first checks change with the system you have.
Hot air furnace
The five checks above apply as written. Thermostat, switch, breaker, filter, blower door.
Hot water boiler (hydronic)
There is no filter to check. Confirm the thermostat, the service switch and the breaker, then look at the pressure gauge on the boiler. If the needle is sitting at or near zero, the system has lost water and it needs a technician, not a top-up from you. Feel whether the circulator pump is running and warm. If one zone is cold and the rest of the house is fine, that points at a zone valve or a thermostat on that zone, not at the boiler.
Steam boiler
Check the sight glass on the side of the boiler. The water level should sit in the middle of the glass. A low water cutoff will shut the boiler down rather than let it run dry, which is the control doing its job. If the glass is empty or cloudy enough that you cannot read it, call.
Heat pump
Look at the outdoor unit. A coil buried in ice, or a fan that is not turning while the indoor unit calls for heat, is a defrost or refrigerant problem. If you are getting lukewarm air rather than no air, the compressor may be off and you are feeling backup electric heat.
Radiant floor
Find the manifold, usually in a utility room or closet, and check that the loop for the cold room is open and that its actuator has power. Radiant heats slowly by design, so give a zone time before calling it dead.
Who you are calling
Riley, Inc. was started in 1933 by Charles D. Riley during the Great Depression, doing plumbing and heating work for Altoona customers. Three of his sons carried it on. A grandson is president today, with two great grandsons in service, which makes four generations of the same family in the same trade. You can read the full history on our About page.
Today the company runs 13 master, journeyman and apprentice plumbers and nine service vans, with more than 250 years of combined experience on the payroll. Every technician holds safety training certification, and Riley has been a member of the Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. since March 1968. The registration number, PA003796, is on the side of every van.
Riley, Inc. — Altoona, PA
What shows up when you book a heating call
Four generations of one family, working out of one shop on Washington Avenue.
Source: Riley, Inc. About and HVAC pages, read 25 September 2026.
Our HVAC service page lists what we repair, replace, inspect and vent, for residential, commercial and industrial buildings alike. Factory-trained technicians handle high-efficiency boilers and water heaters. Water heater and gas line work sits on the plumbing side.
What to have ready when you call
A heating call goes faster when you can answer four things.
- What kind of system you have: furnace, hot water boiler, steam boiler, heat pump or radiant.
- The brand and model, which is printed on a plate inside or beside the access door.
- Roughly how old it is.
- Which of the checks above you already made, and what happened.
Riley, Inc. is at 2701 Washington Ave, Altoona, PA 16601. The phone is (814) 942-6772 and the office is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Outside those hours, send the details through the request a quote form.
If your furnace will not turn on and the five checks did not move it, book the call rather than waiting for the next cold snap to make the decision for you. Request a quote or call (814) 942-6772.