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.
They quit working when they’re not properly maintained. That’s all there is to it.
We were in a similar position, but just poor as heck, and a couple of times every winter I was down in the basement trying to get the heat fixed again. It was always little things. Bearing starting to fail, shaft keys getting loose and pulleys spinning, thermocouples failing. The units were 20+ years old. They were inefficient AF and really needed to go.
Now? We make sure to have the HVAC serviced yearly. It’s a couple hundred bucks. I travel a lot for work and it’s down to 20°F at night. Can’t have this stuff failing on the fam while I’m away. I can’t remember the last time it failed.
What they’re saving in maintenance they’re probably losing in efficiency. They’ll be able to carry the units only so far until one inevitably fails, irreparably, on a holiday weekend and it will cost a fortune for the weekend/emergency service rate to get someone to come by and repair or replace it. Worse yet if it fails while everyone is away and now you’ve got frozen pipes and water damage.