Furnace Repair in Ravenswood, WV
Furnaces here run from October through April. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Jackson County will get in touch.
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Seven months of work, and the power doesn't always stay on
Your furnace runs from October through April here, seven months of the year. On winter nights averaging 26°F, it cycles on and off for hours at a stretch, and every start puts wear on the igniter and the flame sensor. When one of those fails, the burner won't light and the house goes cold.
More than half of homes in the area heat with electricity, so a power outage means no heat at all, not even a pilot light to fall back on. Storms have knocked out power across West Virginia often enough that over a third of households went at least 24 hours without it in 2024. Most furnaces restart on their own once power is back, but if yours doesn't, that's worth a call.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 26°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 13 winter storms
- in ten years, the nights a failure hurts most
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
West Virginia requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
West Virginia's license comes from the Commissioner of Labor, and it is tied to the contractor rather than to any single job. That means the same license covers a furnace repair in Jackson County or anywhere else in the state, and the state has tested and recorded that contractor before letting them work.
Because West Virginia licenses at the contractor level, that license is what stands behind the person coming to look at your furnace. Furnace repair means gas lines and burner connections, and a bad connection is the dangerous part of the job. The license is the state's record that the contractor has been tested to work on gas equipment like this.
Source: West Virginia Legislature
- Why won't my furnace turn on?
- The thermostat is the first thing to check. If the batteries are dead or the setting slipped below room temperature, the furnace has no reason to fire. Check the breaker next, since a tripped one shuts the whole system down with no warning. If power and settings are fine, a licensed contractor can trace it to the switch, the control board, or a safety lockout, which are not things to guess at with winter lows around 26°F here.
- Why is my furnace blowing cold air?
- Most often the furnace is running the blower without the burners lit. That happens when the igniter fails to light the gas, or a safety switch cuts the burners but leaves the fan going. A clogged filter can also starve the burners of air and trigger a shutdown while the blower keeps moving. A contractor can check the igniter, the flame sensor, and the filter to find which one is stopping the flame.
- Why won't my furnace pilot light stay lit?
- A weak or dirty thermocouple is the usual cause. That's the small sensor that tells the gas valve the pilot is burning, and if it's coated with soot or positioned wrong, it reads no flame and shuts the gas off even though the pilot is lit. A draft blowing across the pilot can do the same thing. Cleaning or replacing the thermocouple is a job for a licensed contractor, since it involves the gas line.