Ask the Expert

Q: What’s the first thing I should do if my heat stops working?

A: The first thing you need to do is to stay calm. Remember there are many simple reasons that can cause your home heating to stop working. Sometimes, you may even be able to fix the problem yourself, eliminating the stress of calling for an emergency technician.

Here are common reasons for losing heat in your home:

	You may have tripped a circuit breaker or blown a fuse.
	Your oil tank may be empty. Consider automatic delivery.
	Your thermostat may be on the wrong setting. Also, if the display screen on a digital thermostat is blank, you either need new batteries or the power supply has been interrupted.
	The power switches to your heating system may have been turned off accidentally.

As a last resort for getting your heat back, press the reset button on your oil burner once. If your furnace or boiler starts to run again but shuts down after a few minutes, do not press the reset button again. Pressing it more than once can flood the system with oil and result in a costly repair.

For your convenience, we have put together a No-Heat Checklist that gives you a step-by-step guide that shows you everything you should check before calling us for emergency service. Why not bookmark it now for an easy and complete guide if you lose heat?

If you go through all of these tips and can’t figure out the problem, it’s time to call us: 302-738-4144 (Delaware) or 410-398-2146. (Maryland).

When our service technician arrives, tell him everything that was done to the system and if anything out of the ordinary happened, such as an unusual noise, smoke, or a strange smell or odor.

In many cases, this will help our technician find the problem—and get your heat back on—as fast as possible.

More Heating Tips

• Mark the circuit breaker (or fuse) that controls your heating system.
• Make sure you know the location of your system’s power switches.
• Regularly check the condition of your furnace filter, or the water gauge level if you have a boiler.