When the months turn cold, there's nothing quite as satisfying as firing up your heater for the first time in a while. However, this is often when homeowners realize that something has gone wrong with their heater, as it won't actually warm up the room. If you're not sure what to do in this situation, here's a quick checklist to get you started.

Check Pilot Light

First things first: it's a great idea to check the pilot light of your heater. Without the pilot light, the heater can't produce heat.

If you don't know how to check your pilot light, you should look at the user manual for your heater. However, most of the time, it's easily accessed by opening the front compartment of the heater. Inside, there should be a metal compartment with a hole in it. This hole may be covered by a sliding latch. If you can see a flame inside it, your pilot light is working. If not, the pilot light is out and needs to be relit. But before you do that, look to the next step.

Listen for Gas

If your pilot light is out, get as quiet as you can and as close to the heater as you can and listen. Do you hear a faint hissing sound? If so, that means that the gas to the heater is still running. If not, something has happened and gas isn't being delivered to the heater.

If you can hear the gas running and don't smell anything, you're likely safe to try and re-light the pilot light. However, if there's a strong gas smell, do not light a flame under any circumstances, as gas may have accumulated in the area and it could cause an explosion. In this case, get out of the area immediately, as inhaling gas can be dangerous, and contact a heating repair professional. If gas isn't being delivered to the heater, attempting to light the pilot won't work.

Emergency Precautions

If you're smelling gas or know that gas is flowing but can't get the pilot light to work, you should shut off the gas to the heater immediately. This flowing gas could increase the risk of a major fire or cause severe health hazards. To shut off the gas, go to your outside gas shutoff valve and turn it until you no longer hear hissing. If in doubt on how to do this, contact your local power company for support.

Get Help

While in a lot of cases fixing an out pilot light is a matter of simply lighting the flame again, there are a lot of circumstances mentioned in this guide where that simply won't work. In these cases, you need to get help from a professional. There may be something significantly wrong with your heater or the pipes delivering the gas to the heater that can only be addressed by a professional. Don't try to tinker with the heater or fix it yourself; this could result in severe harm.

Reach out to a heating repair service like Swan Plumbing, Heating & Air for more information.