Of the 1,066 owner homes the Census counts across ZIP 22728, 622 heat with electricity, mostly heat pumps with electric strips for backup, and 354 burn propane from a tank on the property. Natural gas heats 12. So a no-heat call in Midland nearly always comes down to a heat pump that can’t hold the house, or a propane furnace that won’t light, won’t stay lit, or has run its tank dry.
NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 normals for its Warrenton 3 SE station, about six miles north-northwest, count roughly 4,685 heating degree days a year, a January average low of 24.8, and about 13 days a year when the high never climbs past freezing. Freezing nights usually start around November 1 and keep coming until about April 9. A worn igniter or a sluggish inducer motor tends to give up on the first real cold morning.
Fauquier County’s building code sizes heating for 17 degrees outside, and the normals count about five nights a year at 10 or colder. The station read 3 degrees in January 2014 and 2 on two February nights in 2015, and late January 2026 brought Extreme Cold Warnings with wind chills of zero to 10 below across the Piedmont. A heat pump running nonstop on a 5 degree night is doing its job. One that can’t catch up on a 40 degree afternoon needs a look.
Storms take the power, and a propane furnace is as electric as a heat pump: its igniter, control board and blower all need current. The County’s 911 center logged about 1,100 reports in the March 2018 windstorm, mostly trees and wires, and in December 2020 ice built up half an inch thick at Opal. When the lights come back and the heat doesn’t, check the furnace’s service switch and the breakers once, then call us after the storm and we’ll check the whole system.