Heat pump replacement in Midland.

The heat pump is Midland’s main heat. Of 22728’s 1,066 owner homes the Census counts 622 heating with electricity, nearly 6 in 10, and in houses built from the 1980s on that almost always means an outdoor unit and an air handler with electric strips for backup. The typical owner’s house dates from 1986, so plenty are on a second outdoor unit, and the 2000s originals are near the end.

Cold sets the size here. NOAA’s normals for Warrenton 3 SE, the nearest station, about six miles north-northwest, count around five nights a year at 10 degrees or colder and a night at zero or below roughly once every two or three winters. Fauquier County’s code puts the design temperature at 17. Output drops as the air gets colder, so the quote should set what the new unit delivers at 17 against what your house loses at 17.

Ice and wind are the other tests. In December 2020 up to half an inch of ice built up at Opal, in the same Southern Fauquier forecast zone, and a coil sealed in freezing rain can’t defrost until it lets go. An EF1 tornado in March 2011 tracked within about a tenth of a mile of the USGS map point for Midland, flattening a barn near Route 28 and Old Carolina Road. A new outdoor unit here sits level on a raised stand, anchored, out from under the big trees.

In the 354 propane houses the setup is often dual fuel: the heat pump takes the mild weather and a propane furnace under its coil handles the hard freezes. Replacing the heat pump leaves a sound furnace alone; we match the new outdoor unit to that coil and reset the changeover temperature for what the new unit can really do.