In Midland the furnace and air conditioner pair belongs to the propane houses. Of the 1,066 owner homes in 22728, the Census counts 354 heating with tank gas and 622 with electricity, which out here mostly means a heat pump; those houses swap an outdoor unit and an air handler instead, $8,499 to $21,650 installed. A propane house has three pieces: the furnace, a cooling coil seated on top of it, and the condenser in the yard.
Often all three share a birthday. Roughly three Midland homes in ten went up in the 1980s and 1990s and about one in four since 2000, mostly on lots well out from the village. An early 2000s house still running its builder’s pair is past twenty years on both, and the outdoor unit may well run on R-22, a refrigerant no longer made. Doing the pair at once means one permit, one matched coil and one trip into the furnace closet.
Summer is shorter than winter here but not gentle. The NOAA normals station at Warrenton 3 SE, about six miles away, averages a July high near 85 and about 21 days a year at 90 or above. On June 29, 2012, NCEI logged heat indices of 110 to 114 across the Southern Fauquier zone before the derecho hit and the airport measured a 60 mph gust. Size the furnace to what the house loses on a 17 degree morning, Fauquier’s design figure, and the air conditioner to what it gains in July.
The outdoor half lives with Midland’s wind. In August 2021 the airport’s station measured gusts to 74 mph and trees several feet across came up by the roots near Midland Road and Airport Road; about two weeks later a large tree fell onto wires along Rogues Road. A limb can crush a condenser’s cabinet or kink its copper line, so look before you switch the cooling on, and call us after the storm to check it all.