NOAA’s normals for the Purcellville station, about three miles east-northeast of town, put heating degree days near 4,940 a year and cooling degree days near 1,050, so by degree days the area heats nearly five times as much as it cools, and the station logs fewer cooling degree days than Dulles Airport’s 1,230. Cool summers are an old draw: Virginia’s historic register says the village became a vacation spot for people escaping Washington’s summer heat.
So sizing here starts with the winter load, then checks the summer one. Summer still bites. The Purcellville station’s normal year brings 30 days that reach 90, and on July 28, 2023, the heat index topped 110 at numerous western Loudoun mesonets.
What the pair is depends on the fuel. Of the ZIP’s 2,362 owner homes, 953 heat with propane, so a furnace and AC there means a propane furnace inside and, out back, either an air conditioner or a heat pump: $8,898 to $23,000 installed for the two. The 1,257 all-electric homes have an air handler where a furnace would sit, and their like-for-like swap is a heat pump system, $8,499 to $21,650.
The Town’s utility plan describes very rapid growth from the mid 1990s through 2005, and the project its developers built around the town ran to roughly 1,200 homes. A pair set in one of those houses is twenty to thirty years old now, and if the outdoor half predates 2010, its label most likely says R-22.