I have an electric furnace for heating, the air coming out of the heat ducts is cool?

Question

is something wrong with the furnace? Shouldn't the air be warm?
The tempature does get up to the thermostat setting.

Answer 1

Electrician here. Your blower is running, giving you the air flow, but that air is cool because it is not being heated. There are a few reasons why this could be happening.

First, your thermostat control could have been explored by little hands. Make sure it has not been switched to "summer". If your thermostat is very simple (non-digital etc..,) just make sure you set it so it is calling for heat.

Second, although the blower motor is just 110 vac, heating coils in an electric furnace require 240 vac. It is not unusual for a "tied" breaker to trip one side and twist a bit, not appearing fully tripped. Fully shut off and reset all breakers in your power panel that feed your heating system.

Third, now that you have checked your thermostat and incoming power, see if you get heat. If you do not, open your heater panel and familiarize yourself with the writing in red. Then, in bold black, there should be instructions for your specific heater, things that you can do, such as reset a tripped overload or safety onboard the heating unit.

Fourth, a heater will not turn on a heating coil if it does not know the blower is on. Look for wiring harness connections that may have become loosened when a filter was changed or over time due to vibration or other factors.

Fifth, If you do have an elaborate thermostat, there are some things you can check on it. Run through the program parameters to make sure things are still set right. There are times when all I have needed to do is re-enter parameters in the heating program.

Six, it is worthwhile at this point, if your symptoms have remained consistent, to unscrew the thermostat from the wall, and gently check to make certain all wires are unbroken and any jumpers (short wires) are attached to two points. This is normally only valuable if someone has been painting or remodeling, or if the unit and/or home is quite old. These are very small guage solid wires and disturbing them by moving the unit from the wall to paint etc.., can cause loosening or breaking of the connections.

If these measures are not helpful, get someone with electric heater experience in your area to help you.

Please shut off the breakers feeding your heating unit before checking anything with your hands such as the looseness of a connection. If you have your thermostat calling for heat and conditions are right for the heating coils to turn on; there will be inrush current at the point of reconnection, better to have the power off, then turn it back on to see how you did. Good Luck, happy hunting, just be careful, no bare hands on live wiring ever okay?

Answer 2

Could be that the electrical elements are burned out. Good news the unit can be replaced for less than $100 per unit.

Answer 3

Without going into a long explanation like Monk: your high and low limit switches need to be adjusted, it's that simple. I don't have to show you what I know. Get someone in or take the front off, they should be there on the front.

Answer 4

That is electric heat for ya!!!