Heat pump replacement in Upperville.

The Census sample for ZIP 20184 is small, 67 owner homes with a wide margin, but the split is plain: about 64 percent heat with electricity, 36 percent with propane, none with utility gas. Electric heat in these parts usually means a heat pump with backup strips in the air handler, so the outdoor unit heats the house most of the year and cools it the rest.

Winter is long for one here. At Purcellville, the nearest long-record station, the median first freezing night comes around October 25 and the last around April 16, with about 115 nights a year at 32 or below and close to a dozen days that never climb above it. Each of those nights the outdoor coil frosts and clears itself on defrost. On the five or so nights a year that reach 10 degrees or colder, the strips or a propane furnace carry what the heat pump can’t.

Ice is harder on it than cold. The February 2016 ice storm left 0.2 to 0.3 inch across northern Fauquier, enough to seal a coil and freeze a fan blade in place before defrost ever gets to it. Storms take the power as well: on August 10, 2021, 60 knot gusts brought down trees and power lines in and around Upperville. If a generator backs up the house, its size decides whether it can run the strips or only a propane furnace’s blower.

Then there’s where the unit sits. Panther Skin Creek runs along the village’s west edge and Tanyard Branch crosses under Route 50 in it, and FEMA maps special flood hazard areas within about 300 meters of the village’s center point. The January 2016 blizzard left 34 inches at Middleburg and 36 at Bluemont by spotter count. A new outdoor unit belongs up on a stand, clear of standing water and drifts, where its defrost water drains off.