Furnace Repair & Replacement in Everett, WA

Repair or replace — how I decide, and how you can check me

The honest version: a repair is the right answer more often than the industry admits, and I will say so even when the replacement quote is the bigger sale.

What actually decides it is the cost of the repair against what is left of the equipment's life, and whether the failed part is a symptom of something else. A flame sensor on an eight-year-old furnace is a repair, and it is not a close call. A cracked heat exchanger is a replacement, and that is not close either — it is a combustion safety issue and I will condemn it. Most jobs sit between those two, and between them the question is whether you are about to spend a third of the price of new equipment on a system that will ask again next winter.

How to check any contractor, me included: ask what specifically failed, ask to be shown it, and ask what the repair costs against the replacement. If the answer to the first question is vague, that tells you something. Every furnace I condemn, I show you why.

There is a fourth answer that costs you nothing: the system you have has another season in it. I would rather come and look at it again next year than sell you something you did not need this week.

What a replacement costs in Everett

My prices are published on my Google Business Profile where anyone can read them without talking to me first. These are the real figures, all “from” prices:

Ameristar 80,000 BTU 80% gas furnace, like-for-like replacement

from $4,865

A/C coil added during a furnace install (makes the system heat-pump ready)

from $1,435

Honeywell S1200 smart thermostat

from $460

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

from $259

Air Scrubber UV whole-home purification

from $1,040

Mechanical permit

$250

The permit is on that list because it is a real cost, not a surprise that appears at the end. What a published price cannot know is your house: the venting, the gas line, the electrical, and whether the existing plenum and transitions can be reused or have to be fabricated — which on an older Everett house is most of the work. I look at it, I write the number, and the number is the number.

There is a 5% discount for active military, veterans and first responders, and financing is available.

Before you call anyone — three things to check yourself

None of these is a repair, and all three are things I have driven out for. Check them first and you may not need me at all.

The thermostat

Set to heat, set above room temperature, and — on a battery-powered thermostat — batteries that are not flat. A blank or frozen screen is very often just this.

The furnace switch and the breaker

There is usually a switch on or beside the furnace that looks exactly like a light switch, and it gets turned off by people working nearby. Check the breaker too.

The filter

A filter that has not been changed in a year will choke airflow badly enough to trip the high-limit and shut the furnace down on a safety. If the furnace runs briefly then stops, look at the filter before anything else.

What a no-heat call actually looks like

You get a diagnosis, you get shown the failed part, and you get options in writing. Not one number and a recommendation to replace everything.

A Google review describes exactly that sequence, quoted as it was written: “Tested everything and then gave me not only the diagnosis but gave me 4 separate options on what I can do from replacing bad parts in old furnace all the way to upgrading to a new furnace and heat pump.”

— Rich St. Thomas, 24 May 2026

Four options rather than one is the point. Repair the existing equipment, repair it and plan for replacement, replace like for like, or replace with something better — with the prices next to each other so you can decide rather than be told.

Read the rest on Google

Why Everett furnaces fail when they fail

It is rarely the cold. Puget Sound's problem is the length of the heating season, not its severity — a long, wet, forty-degree winter where the heat runs for months. Equipment fails from run hours, and run hours accumulate here in a way they do not in a colder, shorter, drier climate.

That is also why the first genuinely cold weekend of the season is when everything breaks at once. The furnace did not fail because of that weekend; it had been marginal since March and that weekend was the first time anything asked it for full output. A furnace that has been making a new noise since spring is worth looking at in September rather than in the queue in December.

A tune-up is not a magic ritual, but the specific things it catches are real: a flame sensor that needs cleaning before it starts dropping out, a filter that is choking airflow, a condensate drain backing up on a high-efficiency unit, and combustion that has drifted out of specification.

The upgrade question, put honestly

If the furnace is being replaced anyway, this is the one moment when adding cooling is cheap, because the indoor half is already open and someone is already there.

The A/C coil add-on is from $1,435. It makes the system heat-pump ready without buying the heat pump. The indoor half is done, and whenever you decide to add the outdoor unit it is a much smaller job than doing the whole thing later.

Or go straight to a heat pump and keep the furnace as backup — dual fuel. The heat pump does the everyday heating and cooling and the furnace takes the coldest handful of days. It costs more up front because it is two pieces of equipment.

Or replace the furnace and nothing else. If a furnace has died in November, or you are not planning to be in the house long, or the panel cannot carry a heat pump without a service upgrade you do not want to pay for, a straight furnace swap is the honest recommendation and it is a lot cheaper. I will tell you which one you are looking at.

Heat pump installation in Everett

Permits, and why I pull my own

I hold a general contractor's licence as well as a refrigeration journeyman's licence, which means I pull the permit myself instead of subbing it out or quietly leaving it off the quote. The mechanical permit is obtained before the work starts, the work is done to code and to the manufacturer's requirements, and it goes through the required inspections and final approval.

The permit is $250 and it is on my published price list.

Furnace work is combustion work. Venting, gas and the heat exchanger are the parts of this trade that hurt people when they are done badly, which is the real reason an inspection matters more here than almost anywhere else in the house.

Who is actually turning up

ExactAir Home Comfort is one person: me, Rylan Utter, and I am based in Everett. The person who quotes your job is the person who does the work, and there is no commissioned salesman in between.

I am open 7am to 8pm, seven days a week, and the number on this page is my cell. Furnaces do not fail at noon on a Tuesday. They fail on cold, damp nights and at weekends, and when you call at 7:40 on a Sunday evening you get me.

Everything else I do in Everett