Service guide
Furnace ignitor replacement
Most modern gas furnaces light with a hot surface ignitor. It wears out and it is fragile.
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Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
The short version
Furnace ignitor replacement fixes a furnace that runs its inducer fan but never lights because the hot surface ignitor no longer glows.
Ignitors wear out with use and crack easily, even from a fingerprint or a knock.
The part sits next to the burners and gas valve, so it is a job for a licensed technician.
Safety first: gas and carbon monoxide
Read this before anything else on the page.
Do not switch lights or appliances on or off. Once outside, call 911 or your gas utility’s emergency line.
The CPSC says to get outside to fresh air immediately and then call 911. Fit CO alarms on every level and outside sleeping areas.
Gas piping, burners, venting and combustion testing belong to a licensed contractor. Nothing on this page is a procedure.
Signs the ignitor has failed
Watch through the viewing window without opening the burner area.
The classic sign.
Points elsewhere: gas valve, gas supply, or a control fault.
Check the chart on the panel.
Usually not the ignitor. See flame sensor.
Types and why they fail
Older hot surface ignitors are silicon carbide; many newer ones are silicon nitride, which is tougher. Both crack from heat cycling over time and from handling. Oil from skin can create a hot spot.
A replacement must suit that furnace model, and the technician should check why it failed early, for example high voltage or a short cycling furnace. See short cycling.
Red flags in a repair quote
Any one of these is a reason to pause.
A part name without the test that found it fault is a guess.
Refrigerant does not get used up. Low charge means a leak.
Ask for the repair option in writing too, then decide.
Ask whether it is approved for your furnace.
What drives the price of furnace ignitor replacement
HyreHVAC does not publish a price for furnace ignitor replacement. We do not yet hold enough sourced, dated quotes to give a figure we can stand behind.
The visit itself is most of it: diagnostic fee and timing, plus the part. Our HVAC cost guides explain each driver, and the hvac repair cost calculator lets you work through your own numbers.
What happens after you ask
You fill in the HVAC options form with the job and your zip code. HyreHVAC is a publisher, not a contractor, and contractor matching is still being built. Until it is, treat the form as an inquiry. Keep getting your own written quotes and check each installer’s licence with your state board.
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Tell us about the work
Three short steps: the job, your home, and how to reach you. Nothing goes to an HVAC company unless you agree.
A person reads it and replies, free and with no obligation. Matching is not live yet, so this is not a quote. If you smell gas or a CO alarm sounds, leave the house and call 911 or your gas utility first.
Get HVAC Options
A person at HyreHVAC reads the request and replies. Matching with contractors is not live yet, so this is not a quote.
Questions
How long does a furnace ignitor last?
Can I replace a furnace ignitor myself?
Why does my new ignitor keep failing?
What if I smell gas when the furnace tries to light?
Written and audited by
HYRE HVAC Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the federal microdata file, the statute or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify.
The counts below are generated from the published pages themselves, last counted October 26, 2026, and they are what we have actually published rather than what we intend to.
- 18
- studies published
- 15
- federal sources read and cited
- 15
- studies published with their full dataset as CSV
- 51
- jurisdictions reproduced against EIA’s own tables
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Federal data comes from the agency that collects it, in the file that agency publishes. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we download the source and compute the figure ourselves.
- We validate against the agency before we publish. First, we use each federal microdata file to reproduce the agency’s own published tables. Our cooling research reproduces EIA’s state estimates and standard errors for all 51 jurisdictions. That check caught a variance formula that was off by a factor of four.
- Every estimate carries its uncertainty. These are survey figures, not counts. Standard errors are computed from the replicate weights the federal file supplies and printed beside the estimate. An estimate too imprecise to publish is reported as such rather than printed.
- Nothing is typed by hand. Prose, tables and charts all read from one dataset built by script, so a number in a sentence and the same number in the table below it cannot disagree.
- We publish the data, not just the conclusion. 15 of our 18 studies offer the full computed table as a CSV download on the page, so you can check the analysis or disagree with it. A study without a row-level dataset gets no download link and claims none in its structured data.
- We correct in public. Where we have published a figure wrongly we fix the figure, rewrite any analysis that rested on it rather than patching the number underneath it, and leave a dated correction note on the page.
- We do not install or sell HVAC equipment, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of Sources checked October 26, 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
HyreHVAC is a publisher. We do not install, repair or inspect HVAC equipment and hold no contractor licence. Nothing here replaces an on-site diagnosis by a licensed contractor. Sources are cited with the date they were checked.