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My wife and I just bought a brand new house in the Seattle area that has a forced air heating system. It seems to work very well, heating the main floor (where the thermostat is located) to the desired temperature in a matter of minutes. When I come home from work, for example, and turn it up from 61 to 67 degrees, it will run for maybe only 15 minutes or so to heat to that temperature before shutting off.
My question is that it seems to cycle on and off a lot- the main floor is a fairly small area, just a big open room with the kitchen and living room, including 4 heating vents which really move a lot of warm/hot air. So after it shuts off the thermostat temp will drop a bit and then maybe 10 minutes later the furnace will kick back on, run for 5 or 6 minutes, kick off again, and then maybe come back on and run through this cycle every 20 minutes or so. Does this mean I have a furnace that is oversized for my small (1300 square foot) house, or is this just to be expected no matter the size of the furnace when the thermostat is in a room that is wide open with that many vents? Closing two of the 4 vents doesn't even seem to help, so much warm air is kicked out of even the two that are left open, you can feel it even in the middle of the room.
This is a good thing, for sure as far as comfort goes- I'm just concerned about efficiency, with the furnace kicking off and on so much.
Maybe the setting is too sensitive. I think you can adjust it to react to more than one degree of difference. Right now it sounds touchy - as soon as the temperature is off by one degree from the setpoint it goes on. Maybe you can make that two or three degrees.
It's probably not too late to call the builder or heating subcontractor installer guy and ask these questions directly.
Ask your neighbors if they are having the same thing happen.
Check your furnace filter...sometimes a clogged filter makes systems act funny. Could be full of building debris.
Yes, actually I was thinking it was just too sensitive.... I will look into adjusting that (I wasn't aware that could be done, I'll dig out the manual to look, and call the HVAC guy if necessary)
It could be oversize... but the symptom describe is as others have said... Heat Anticipater... also check to make sure the blower fan is set to the right speed if it is single speed.
I commonly run with a 2 degree split and blower fan on at work... this way the air is constantly mixed...
At home, I'm a big fan of multistage burners and variable speed blower.
This way, the blower runs softly almost all the time to maintain temp and only the small burner kicks on when needed... it is so quiet, it's not even noticed.
In a cold house, turning on the furnace is very noticeable... all burners ignite and the blower goes to maximum till it comes close to set temp.
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