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.
I had a fuck ass boiler where the pump would get stuck from not running in the warmer months, the sediments would still and the pump wouldn’t move. So in the fall when it came time to use it I always had to whack it with a 2x4 and a hammer to get it to spin again. Could be similar.
Probably something dumb like your case. We lived without heat for 2 years. Working in the closet with a buddy led me to screwing the breaker box to the stud properly. Never tripped again. No idea why.