Warrenton 3 SE, the long-record weather station about three miles west-northwest of Casanova, read 2 degrees on the mornings of February 20 and 21, 2015, and the first of those afternoons topped out at 16. Fauquier County sizes heating systems for a 17 degree night, so that was a whole day colder than the number the furnace or heat pump was picked for. On January 27, 2026, the weather sensor at Warrenton-Fauquier Airport, about five miles south, read 3 below zero at 7:35 in the morning, with a wind chill of 14 below.
In Catlett’s 20119, the ZIP area the Census uses for Casanova, about half of owner homes heat with electricity, and out here that’s usually a heat pump. Below about 20 degrees, a heat pump leans on its electric strips for much of the house, and its outdoor coil frosts over and clears itself again and again. The fall visit runs it in heating, watches a defrost and confirms each stage of backup heat comes on. A heat pump tune-up is the same $99 a system as a furnace, and so is a boiler or a ductless mini split.
Close to three owner homes in ten burn propane, and the Census counts no piped gas at all in the ZIP. Propane burns at a higher pressure at the valve than natural gas does, so the tech reads it with the burners lit and sets it to the LP figure on the rating plate. In the village’s houses from around 1900, the nomination lists interior brick flues built long before any furnace. Where one now carries a furnace’s exhaust, the tune-up runs a full heating cycle and makes sure the draft safety shuts the burners down if the flue stops drawing.
Then there’s the snow and the wind. A volunteer gauge about five miles west-southwest of the village had 30 inches on the ground on January 24, 2016. A heat pump buried like that can’t move air across its coil or drain off what it melts in defrost, so keep a clear space around its top and sides in a big storm. On March 2, 2018, a nor’easter drove a wave of calls to Fauquier County 911, mostly for trees and wires down. Propane in the tank doesn’t help in an outage: without electricity the furnace can’t light or run its blower. If the heat stays off once the lights are back, call us.