Furnace Installation in Hurricane, WV
A new furnace here will run from October through April every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Putnam County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
What winter in Hurricane asks of a new furnace
Hurricane needs heat from October through April, seven months of the year. Winter nights average 27°F, and a new furnace has to carry that load night after night without a break, starting reliably every time.
Furnaces built since November 2015 have to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so any new installation will meet that floor. Power matters too. Putnam County has seen 16 winter storms and 142 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across West Virginia 35 percent of households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. 61.2 percent of homes here heat with electricity, so a furnace that depends on the grid is only as reliable as the grid is.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 27°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
West Virginia requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license comes from the West Virginia Commissioner of Labor, and it belongs to the contractor, not to any one job. That's different from a registration, where a business is just on file with nothing tested behind it.
For a furnace installation, that license is what stands behind the person doing the work. It isn't the only check on the job, though. In most cities and counties, putting in a new furnace needs a permit from the local building office, and the work gets inspected once it's done. That inspection is what catches a bad gas connection or a flue that isn't vented right, the part of the job where a mistake actually puts the house at risk.
Source: West Virginia Legislature
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your home's square footage, how well it's insulated, your ceiling height, and the number and size of your windows, so there's no single number that fits every house. A contractor works this out with a load calculation, not a rule of thumb, because a furnace that's too big cycles on and off too fast and one that's too small runs constantly without keeping up. With winter lows here averaging 27°F, getting this number right matters more than in a milder climate. Have the contractor size it for your specific house rather than going off the furnace you're replacing.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- An aging furnace that needs more repairs each year is the clearest sign, especially once a technician tells you the heat exchanger is cracked, which is a safety issue and not something to patch. Uneven heat between rooms or a furnace that runs longer than it used to are also worth paying attention to. Homes here need heat from October through April, seven months of the year, so a furnace that's struggling in the fall will only get worse as temperatures drop toward that 27°F average low. If it's needing service more than once a season, that's worth taking seriously too.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- Any non-weatherized gas furnace made on or after November 19, 2015 already has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE by law, so the real question is whether it's worth going higher than that. A higher AFUE rating means less fuel lost out the vent and more of it turned into heat in your house. With seven months of heating a year here, that difference adds up more than it would somewhere with a shorter winter. A contractor can walk you through the tradeoff for your specific furnace and venting setup, since higher-efficiency models often need different venting than standard ones.