Furnace Repair in Parkersburg, WV
Furnaces here run from October through April. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Wood County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Seven months of hard use in Wood County
Your furnace runs from October through April here, seven months of the year. On winter nights that average 25°F, it cycles on and off for hours at a stretch to keep the house warm. Most homes here heat with gas, and every cycle puts a load on the igniter and the burner assembly. A worn igniter is often what finally gives out, leaving the house cold with the blower still running.
Wood County also sees real winter weather. Ten years of records show 15 winter storms and 91 damaging wind events in this area, and in 2024 more than a third of West Virginia households lost power for at least 24 hours at some point. A furnace should start back up on its own once power returns, but the same storms that cause those outages are hard on a furnace already worn from a long winter of use.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 25°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 73%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 15 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace would cut about $170 a year off heating for a typical Wood County home.
Estimates for a typical Wood County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, West Virginia fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when one part has failed and the heat exchanger is sound.
Replacement makes sense when the heat exchanger is cracked or the furnace keeps needing parts.
West Virginia requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state license comes from the Commissioner of Labor, and it covers the contractor, not each individual job. That means the same license applies whether the work is a small repair or a full install, and it stays tied to the contractor across every job they take on.
For a furnace repair, that license is what stands behind the person working on your gas line and the connections at your furnace. That connection is the part of the job where a mistake matters most, and here it falls under a contractor the state has licensed. In Wood County, 72.9% of homes heat with gas, so this is the kind of work most furnace repairs in the area involve.
Source: West Virginia Legislature
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- Most of the time it's the thermostat not calling for heat, a tripped breaker, or the switch on the furnace itself flipped off. That switch looks like a light switch and sits on or near the unit, and it's easy to bump. If the breaker keeps tripping or the furnace stays dead after you check those, a contractor needs to look at it, since that points to an electrical or ignition problem underneath.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Check your thermostat fan setting first. If it's set to "on" instead of "auto", the blower runs even when the burners aren't firing, and that feels like cold air. If the setting is right and you're still getting cold air, the igniter or the flame sensor may be failing, or the gas valve isn't opening. With nights here averaging 25°F through the winter, that's not something to wait on.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A pilot that won't stay lit is almost always the thermocouple. That's the small sensor that sits in the pilot flame and tells the gas valve it's safe to stay open. When it wears out, it can't hold that signal and the gas valve shuts the pilot off. It's a cheap part but it takes a contractor to swap it out safely, since it sits right next to the gas line.