Heat pump replacement in Middleburg.

Electric heat leads across 20117: about 63 owner homes in 100, against about 20 on propane and 4 on piped gas. In a house with no gas line, the heat pump outside and the air handler inside are the entire heating system, and the strips in that air handler are the only backup, so a replacement means both halves, matched.

The cold sets the size. The Purcellville co-op, the nearest station with temperature normals at about Middleburg’s elevation, drops to freezing or below on about 115 nights in a normal year, and on January 23, 2025, a station in Middleburg itself read 4 below, unofficially. Every heat pump’s spec sheet lists its output at 17 degrees as well as at 47, and for a Middleburg winter the 17 degree figure is the one to compare.

Then there’s the screen. Inside the Historic District, the Town’s guidelines want freestanding heating and cooling equipment enclosed in a material and color that suit the house, and the guideline’s own example is a screen built so air still moves through it. That matters more for a heat pump than for an air conditioner: all winter it pulls its heat out of the outdoor air, and boxed in tight it breathes its own chilled exhaust.

Loudoun County’s fee schedule lists a mechanical permit for replacing central heating and air conditioning in a house, and inside the town limits the Town’s guidelines say its Zoning Administrator may need to clear the job first. On the tenth or so of 20117’s land in Fauquier County, swapping an electric appliance for a similar one in the same spot counts as an ordinary repair; moving it takes a permit.