HVAC Repair in Fairmont, WV
Homes here need heat from October through May and cooling from June through August. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Marion County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eleven months of work, most of it in the cold
Your furnace carries the load here. Heat runs October through May, eight months straight, and winter nights average 24°F. That means long stretches where the burner is cycling on and off all night to hold the house at temperature. Every start puts wear on the igniter and the ignition control, and those are the parts that tend to fail first, usually on the coldest nights when the system is working hardest.
Summer is short by comparison, three months of afternoons near 82°F, but the air conditioner still has to keep up when it runs. Add in the storms this area sees, wind especially, and the power itself is not always reliable. Over a third of households in West Virginia lost power for a full day or more in 2024. A furnace or air conditioner that sits through an outage and then a hard restart is a furnace or air conditioner that shows its weak parts sooner.
- 8 months
- October through May, your system heats
- 3 months
- June through August, it cools
- 24°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 82°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new furnace and air conditioner would cut about $190 a year off heating and cooling for a typical Marion County home.
Estimates for a typical Marion 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.
Replacement makes sense when the furnace's heat exchanger is cracked, the air conditioner's compressor has failed, or repairs keep coming.
West Virginia requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Commissioner of Labor issues that license, and getting one means the contractor was tested and is on record with the state. The license covers the business itself, not each job, so the same license applies whether the crew is repairing a furnace or working on the cooling side of the system.
For a repair on your heating and cooling system, that license is what stands behind the person doing the work. It was not issued for this particular repair. It was issued to the contractor once, and it is the business that stays answerable to the state for the work it does in your home.
Source: West Virginia Legislature
- Why is my heat not working?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to heat and the temperature is actually above room temperature, and check the batteries if it uses them. If the thermostat looks fine, check your breaker panel. A furnace that won't fire at all is often a tripped breaker or a switch near the unit that got bumped off. If power is getting to the furnace and it still won't run, the igniter or the flame sensor may have failed, and that's a job for a licensed contractor to diagnose. At 24°F on a winter night here, this isn't something to leave for long.
- Why is my system running but not cooling the house?
- Check the air filter first. A filter clogged with dust chokes off airflow, and the air conditioner can run for hours without bringing the house down. Check the outdoor unit next. If the coil is packed with grass clippings or leaves, it can't shed heat, and the same thing happens, the system runs but the house doesn't cool. If the filter is clean and the outdoor coil looks clear, the problem is likely inside the system, low refrigerant or a failing part, and that needs a contractor to check with gauges. On an 82°F afternoon a struggling system falls behind fast, so don't wait too many days on this one.
- What can I check before calling for HVAC repair?
- Check the thermostat settings and batteries, check the breaker or the switch near the unit, and check the air filter. These three catch a surprising number of no-heat and no-cool calls. Also look at any outdoor unit for debris or ice sitting on it, since either one blocks airflow the system needs to work. If everything there looks normal and the system still isn't doing its job, that points to something inside it, and a licensed West Virginia HVAC contractor will need to open it up and find out what's wrong.