Piped gas barely reaches 20117. Of the ZIP’s 927 owner homes, the Census counts 41 heating with utility gas and 187 with propane from a tank on the lot, while 582 heat with electricity. So a Middleburg furnace coming due is most often a propane furnace, and the air conditioner or heat pump out back usually stays put.
It works a long season. The NOAA co-op in Purcellville, 12 miles north at about Middleburg’s height, puts the median first freeze on October 25 and the last on April 16, with January nights averaging 24.5 degrees. A weather station in Middleburg read 4 below on the morning of January 23, 2025, a reading the Weather Service counts as unofficial. The new furnace gets sized to what the house loses on a morning like that, measured, not read off the old label.
Then there’s the chimney. About one home in four across 20117 went up before 1940, and the Town’s design guidelines note that some flues in the Historic District still carry furnace exhaust. A high-efficiency propane furnace vents through its own plastic pipe instead, which can leave a water heater alone in a flue built for more. The guidelines want the chimney kept regardless, and a vent a public street can see needs the Historic District Review Committee’s approval before it goes in.
A propane furnace still depends on the power lines. Its igniter, inducer fan, blower and control board all run on electricity, and the February 2010 snowstorm put out power throughout Loudoun County. About a tenth of 20117’s land lies in Fauquier County, where the County’s building office in Warrenton wants a permit for any fuel-fired appliance, a same-spot propane furnace included.