Ask a Clifton house what it burns and you can get four answers. In the Census tract around the town, about half the owner homes heat with electricity, a quarter with natural gas, one in ten with oil and one in ten with propane. Across Fairfax County, oil and propane each heat fewer than two homes in a hundred. In the 1980s subdivisions around Springstone Drive it looks like the rest of the county again: about 85 percent natural gas.
Propane burns in the same furnace a natural gas house has, converted with smaller orifices, so the repairs are the familiar ones: a flame sensor, an igniter, an inducer motor. The difference is the supply. A tank running low lets the burners light weak or not at all, and once a supplier refills an empty tank the system usually needs a leak check before anyone relights it. If the gauge on the tank reads near empty, call the supplier first.
Oil comes with a groundwater question out here. Off the subdivision streets Clifton draws from private wells, and the county Health Department lists leaking fuel oil tanks among the ways well water gets contaminated, so have a tank company look at the tank and its supply line. The Town’s plan adds that oil spills are reported to the Virginia DEQ office in Woodbridge. When an oil burner reaches the end, the usual replacement is a heat pump on the existing ductwork or a propane furnace; a furnace alone runs $4,285 to $14,040 installed.
Replacing a gas or propane furnace takes a Fairfax County permit even like for like, because Virginia’s code exempts only appliances that burn neither gas nor oil, and it comes with a chimney vent certification. Inside the town line the Town signs off before the county takes the application. And if you’re weighing a ground-source heat pump on a big lot, its loop wells need their own Health Department permit and a licensed well provider.