How do you fix Goodman E2?

Clear the vent termination if it is blocked, and keep both pipes clear of snow, ice, and vegetation. Check after heavy weather. Clear a blocked condensate drain — reasonable homeowner work on most installations. Full steps and safety notes are on this page.

Goodman furnace E2: Low stage pressure switch stuck open

E2 means the inducer ran and the low stage pressure switch never closed, so gas was never released. It is the most common fault on high-efficiency furnaces, and the cause is often outside the house.

Do the simple checks below, then stop. The simple checks listed above are genuinely homeowner work and worth doing first. Beyond them, this fault involves the gas valve, the burner compartment, or the heat exchanger — the parts whose failure can put combustion products, including carbon monoxide, into the air the house breathes. If the simple checks do not resolve it, stop there and call a licensed technician rather than resetting the furnace repeatedly to keep the heat on. Make sure there is a working carbon monoxide alarm on every level of the home, including the level the furnace is on. The conditions that mean stop now.

Applies to: Goodman GMVC96, GMVM97, GCVC96, GCVM97 and Amana AMVC96, AMVM97 series gas furnaces with a two-character alphanumeric display.

What it means

At the start of a heating cycle the control runs the draft inducer and waits for the pressure switch to close, confirming enough air is moving to carry combustion products safely out. If it does not close in the allowed time, the sequence stops before the gas valve opens. Everything in the venting path can produce this: a blocked intake or exhaust, a full condensate trap, a weak inducer, a disconnected hose. It is also the fault most often caused by something entirely outside the furnace — a vent termination blocked by snow, ice, leaves, or a nest. That makes the first useful check a walk outside rather than anything in the basement.

Most common causes

A blocked exhaust or intake pipe at the outside termination — snow, ice, leaves, insect or rodent nests.
A condensate drain or trap that is full or blocked, so water sits where the draft should be.
The sensing hose disconnected, cracked, kinked, or holding water.
A weak or seized draft inducer, or a loose inducer wheel, so the required suction is never produced.
The pressure switch itself failed and no longer closing at its rated pressure.
Vent piping too long, with too many elbows, or the wrong diameter for the furnace's input.
High wind at the termination briefly disturbing the draft on some installations.

How to diagnose it

Look at the outside vent termination first. It is the highest-yield check on the list and needs no tools.
Listen for the inducer. If it does not run at all, the fault is upstream of the switch; if it runs and nothing follows, the switch is not seeing the draft.
Check the condensate drain and trap for standing water, and look for water anywhere it should not be inside the cabinet.
Note the weather. This appearing during the first hard freeze or a snowstorm points strongly at the termination.
Check whether anything has recently been built, stored, or planted near the outside vent.

How to fix it

Clear the vent termination if it is blocked, and keep both pipes clear of snow, ice, and vegetation. Check after heavy weather.
Clear a blocked condensate drain — reasonable homeowner work on most installations.
The pressure switch, its hose, the inducer, and the vent system inside the cabinet are technician work.
If the vent piping is undersized or over-length for the furnace, have it corrected rather than worked around. A furnace that only just proves draft will fault intermittently for years.
Never bypass the pressure switch. A blocked flue with a firing burner is how carbon monoxide gets into a house.

Notes

If this appears on the coldest night and clears on a milder day, suspect ice at the vent termination rather than a failed part. High-efficiency furnaces produce condensate at the exhaust, and it can freeze around the pipe and progressively close it.

All codes for this manufacturer

Goodman and Amana furnace fault codes — every code, with what differs between models.

Models this code appears on

From the manufacturer's per-model database. If your model is not listed, this code may not exist on your board, or it may mean something different — check the model page.

The same fault on other control families

The switch that will not close is the most-published fault in condensing furnaces, and the E-code generation kept it: Trane E32, Lennox E223, and Rheem's two blinks (switch remains open) all match this definition, as does the legacy Goodman three flashes this code descends from. The pressure switch code hub holds the full cross-brand map — forty-seven codes and counting — along with the reason every one of them halts the sequence before gas is released.

What the fix costs

Start with the possibility that costs nothing: this fault's cause is frequently outside the house, at an intake or exhaust termination blocked by snow, ice, or debris, and clearing it ends the story. Where the visit is needed, the repair cost guide brackets pressure switch work at $150–400 with its blocked-flue-first warning — the switch refusing to close is very often a truthful report about venting rather than a component failure — and holds $300–900 in reserve for the inducer motor when the draft is weak because the motor producing it is. On a two-stage or modulating furnace, expect the technician to verify both stages while there; it is the same manometer setup twice.

DIY or call a pro?

The outdoor walk is yours: find both terminations and look for anything sitting in or over them, especially after snow, storms, or a new bird family. That single check resolves a meaningful share of E2 appearances. The indoor half is not yours — hose integrity, water in the tubing, condensate drainage, and actual draft readings are live-furnace instrument work. Between those halves sits the restraint: if clearing the terminations does not keep the code away, resist the cycle of resets. A furnace repeatedly failing to prove draft is telling you its combustion air path is compromised somewhere you cannot see, and that message deserves a manometer, not a retry.

What this looks like

From the outside, this usually shows up as the inducer spins up but the burners never fire — that walkthrough covers what to check in order, and when it stops being a homeowner job.

Sources

Goodman Manufacturing — Diagnostic Code Identification System (model-specific fault code lookup)

This site is a reference, not a substitute for a licensed HVAC technician. Gas appliances can leak carbon monoxide and cause fire. Anything involving gas lines, the heat exchanger, or the flame sensing circuit should be handled by a licensed professional. Pages are written with AI assistance from the sources listed on each page and checked against them before publishing.