Inside the City of Manassas, electricity heats half the owner-occupied homes, and in a house near the City’s 1985 median that usually means a heat pump. Those outdoor units don’t wake up in spring. They come off five months of heating, frosting over on cold mornings and defrosting, the meltwater sometimes refreezing at the base. Cleaning a coil that wintered under ice and leaves is the first job of the visit.
Indoors it runs the other way. A coil that’s heating makes next to no water, so the drain line under the air handler sits mostly dry from October into spring, and whatever last summer left in it dries in place. Then the first muggy week sends a full season of water through it. Over a finished ceiling, that’s the cheapest line on the list to clear.
On City power, an air conditioner enrolled in Load Management carries the City’s switch, which at peak demand cycles the compressor off 15 minutes out of every half hour, usually 4 to 6 p.m. on the month’s hottest days. It belongs to the program, not to your system, so mention it when you book.
Past the city line the outdoor unit is more often a plain air conditioner beside a gas furnace, unused from fall until the first warm week. Sudley, in 20109, is close to half townhouses with a 1977 median, its outdoor units shoulder to shoulder behind the rows. Buckhall and Independent Hill are mostly detached, four in ten or more built since 2000, and a bigger house there often cools its bedrooms with a second system in the attic: two systems, two tune-ups.