Heating & Cooling
Read the code first, and do not clear it
Everything here is keyed to the code on the control board display. If you are not sure which diagnostic system your furnace uses, or you want the full table of what each code means, start with our Goodman error code chart, which is transcribed from Goodman’s own manual.
One habit worth building before anything else: photograph the display before you touch the breaker. Cycling power clears the fault, and on an intermittent problem that code may not come back for a week.
What each code points at
| Code | What it usually turns out to be | Who handles it |
|---|---|---|
| E E 0 - ignition lockout after three retries | A dirty flame sensor far more often than a failed igniter. Also low gas pressure, or a gas valve that has been left closed after other work. | Technician, though check the gas valve handle and the thermostat first |
| E E 1 - pressure switch stuck closed | A shorted pressure switch circuit, a failed switch, or an inducer that is not actually running. The board sees closed before the inducer has proved anything. | Technician |
| E E 2 - pressure switch open | A blocked or kinked pressure switch hose, a blocked flue or intake, or on a condensing furnace a condensate drain backed up to the point it blocks the trap. | Check the outside vent terminal for snow and ice yourself, then technician |
| E E 3 - open high limit switch | Airflow. A grey filter, closed registers, a blocked return, or a blower running too slow for the ductwork. The furnace is overheating because its heat has nowhere to go. | Homeowner first: filter and registers |
| E E 4 - flame detected with no flame expected | A leaking or stuck-open gas valve, or a failed flame sensor circuit. Gas may be entering the burner when the furnace thinks it is off. | Shut it off and call |
| E E 5 - open fuse | Usually a short in the low voltage wiring, often at the thermostat or at a condensate safety switch. The fuse did its job; replacing it without finding the short just blows another. | Technician |
| E E 6 - low flame signal | A dirty or corroded flame sensor, or a weak flame from low gas pressure or a partly blocked burner. This is the code that becomes E E 0 next month if nothing is done. | Technician |
| E E A - reversed polarity or grounding error | The line and neutral are swapped, or the furnace is not properly grounded. The flame sensing circuit needs a correct ground to work at all. | Licensed electrician or our electrical team |
| E E b or E E C - gas valve circuit error | The gas valve is energized when it should not be, or not energized when it should be. Goodman labels these two inconsistently, so treat both as a gas valve circuit fault. | Shut it off and call |
| E E n - ignitor open | A cracked hot surface igniter. They are a wear part and they fail more in cold snaps because that is when the furnace cycles most. | Technician |
| E E J - inducer relay error | The board cannot drive the inducer. Often the relay on the board rather than the motor, which means a control board. | Technician |
| E 1 1 - open rollout switch | Flame came out of the burner compartment. Over-firing, a blocked heat exchanger, or a flue problem. The switch is the last line of defence and it worked. | Shut it off and call |
Code meanings from Goodman service manual RS6621301. Likely causes are from our own service calls across New Hampshire, southern Maine and New Jersey.
The two airflow codes are worth your own ten minutes
An open high limit, E E 3, is the one code where a homeowner regularly fixes the problem outright. The furnace is making more heat than the air moving across it can carry away, and the limit switch shuts it down before the heat exchanger is damaged.
- Pull the filter and hold it up to a light. If you cannot see light through it, that is the fault.
- Open every supply register, including the ones in rooms nobody uses. Closing registers does not save fuel, it raises static pressure.
- Clear anything stacked against the return grille. Furniture and storage against a return is the most common version of this we find.
- If it trips again within an hour of a new filter, stop. Repeated high limit trips with clean airflow mean the blower or the heat exchanger needs looking at.
A pressure switch open, E E 2, has one homeowner-checkable cause in our climate: the vent terminal outside the house. Snow drifts, ice from a roof line, and leaves in autumn all block a sidewall vent. Clearing it is safe and sometimes that is the whole repair.
The four codes that are a safety stop
When the code is a symptom of the furnace being finished
Codes cluster as a furnace ages. Once you are buying an inducer motor, then a control board, then a gas valve for a unit past its design life, you are financing a replacement one part at a time and still getting the old efficiency. A cracked heat exchanger ends the conversation outright: the unit gets shut down and tagged rather than patched.
We will tell you which side of that line you are on. If it is a repair, furnace repair is the page. If it is not, furnace installation covers how we size the replacement, and a heat loss calculation decides it rather than the nameplate on the old unit.
Most of these codes are preventable. A flame sensor cleaned, a condensate trap flushed and a static pressure reading taken once a year is what HVAC maintenance is for. We work across Manchester, Dover, and northern and central New Jersey out of Sparta and Brick.