Furnace Installation in Follansbee, WV
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Brooke County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heating in Follansbee
Your furnace has to cover October through May here, eight months of the year, with winter nights averaging 24°F. That is most of the year spent working, not a few cold snaps here and there.
Power is part of the picture too. Across West Virginia, 35 percent of households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024, and the last ten years brought 7 winter storms and 38 damaging wind events here. A furnace that cannot restart on its own after an outage leaves the house cold at 24°F until someone resets it. Any new furnace installed now also has to meet the federal minimum of 80 percent AFUE, so it turns most of the fuel it burns into heat instead of losing it up the flue.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 24°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 59%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A high-efficiency gas furnace would save about $150 a year to run in Brooke County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Brooke County home, from EIA household energy data, West Virginia fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
West Virginia requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license is issued to the contractor, not to each job, so it covers this installation because it covers the business doing the work, not because someone applied for it specifically here.
For the furnace install itself, the license is what stands behind the contractor's qualifications, but the work still needs a permit from the local building office and an inspection once it's done. That inspection is where the gas connections and venting get checked, which matters most in a county like Brooke, where 59.1% of homes heat with gas.
Source: West Virginia Legislature
- What size furnace does my house need?
- The right size depends on your square footage, your insulation, your ceiling height, and how many windows you have facing north. A contractor works this out with a load calculation, not a rule of thumb based on square footage alone. This matters more here than in mild climates, since your furnace has to hold its own against nights averaging 24°F from December through February. Too big and it short cycles, wearing out parts faster. Too small and it runs constantly all winter without keeping up.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Rising repair calls are the clearest sign. If you're paying for a service visit every winter, or the same part keeps failing, replacing it usually costs less over time than patching it again. Also watch for uneven heat between rooms or a furnace that runs longer to reach the same temperature. Since homes here need heat from October through May, eight months of the year, a furnace on its way out gets tested most of the year, not just a few cold weeks.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- For a house that heats eight months a year, efficiency has more time to matter than it would somewhere with a short winter. Furnaces made after November 19, 2015 have to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, and high-efficiency models go higher than that, meaning less fuel burned for the same heat. In Brooke County, 59.1 percent of homes heat with gas, so this is the furnace most people here are actually choosing between. A contractor can walk you through the models and price the job for your house, since the difference in upfront cost varies by unit.