In my house, the heater basically stops working every year and my dad put some like “bandaid” solution over it with manipulating some wiring, idk what they do. But like, every year, the heater would stop working like several times throughout the winter and constanly needs to be fixed. But this year it just stopped working completely. Like I google it and those heaters are like $2000 to $2500 brand new, so yea, I get it, parents want to save money, but like, having the heat stop few times a year feels like living in a developing country tbh 😓. So now I’m basically just relying on those portable heater things to stay warm, and my cat is feeling too cold so she’s staying in bedrooms most of the time because its where the portable heaters are at, when she normally just wanders the entire house.
I had a similar problem. Mine was a gas heater. The little fan (induction motor?) shit out. AC guy who was always good to us and honest came out and sprayed WD-40 on it and said it’ll get you through the year, which it did, but it failed after that. He said it would be $800 to replace but I didn’t have it. Found a replacement on Amazon for $45 and watched a YouTube tutorial and fixed it no problem. Check that if it sounds like your problem and you’re handy or someone you know is. Saved me $750 and I never had an issue again.
That little fan is what brings fresh air into the system because gas or whatever so if it fails the system will shut down because of safety.
The induction fan induces air to move out the exhaust before the combustion starts, so exhaust gas is ensured to exit the right direction.
If the furnace thinks the induction motor isn’t running or there isn’t a slight vacuum in the chamber right before the induction fan then it won’t light for safety reasons.
I’m my case it was a loose wire on the pressure sensor. Cost me a couple hours to figure out and a paper clip to fix. Been fine for 3 years since now.