The 20105 zip code spans about two centuries of housing. At one end is the historic village of Aldie along Route 50, with nineteenth century buildings around the old mill. At the other are the large planned developments built out through the 2000s and 2010s, where entire neighborhoods went up in a few years.
Almost all of our Aldie heating work is at the newer end, and almost all of it comes down to equipment that went in with the house and is now old enough to need its first real attention.
What is in a newer Aldie house
A gas furnace with central air, sealed combustion, venting in PVC out a side wall. Two systems in the larger houses, zoned in some. Heat pumps across a share of the townhouses and condos. No boilers.
Because it all went in at once, it tends to need attention at once, and the parts that go first are predictable and cheap.
What fails, and what it costs
It lights, runs a few seconds, shuts off, and tries again. Flame sensor. The rod that confirms the flame builds a film of oxide and stops passing its signal, so the board closes the gas as a safety. $95 to $180 to clean, ten minutes of work, and by a wide margin the most common no-heat call we run.
Clicking, no flame. Hot surface igniter, $240 to $410. A wear part.
Water on the floor, or the furnace will not start at all. Condensate trap, $175 to $420. A high efficiency furnace makes water when it runs and refuses to fire when it cannot drain.
Runs and quits after ten or fifteen minutes. Overheating on restricted airflow, which here means the filter or the blower wheel. Cleaning the wheel is $300 to $440.
One zone warm, one cold on the same system. A zone damper or its motor in a zoned house, not the furnace.
A whine or rattle before the burners light. The inducer motor. When it fails the furnace will not light at all. About $1,950.
- Diagnostic visit: about $99.
- Thermostat $300 to $640. Blower motor $670 to $2,400.
- Control board $550 to $1,180. Heat pump defrost board $450 to $1,150.
- Capacitor $240 to $370. Contactor $290 to $425.
- Cracked heat exchanger: not a repair at any price. Here is why.
Check the warranty before you pay
On equipment this age it is often still covered. Most major brands give ten years on parts if the unit was registered shortly after installation, 90 days for Carrier and Rheem, 60 for Trane and Goodman. Unregistered, coverage usually drops to five years. None of the standard warranties include labor, so a covered repair still costs something, just far less.
The model and serial number are on a label inside the furnace door. If you bought the house from the original owner, the registration may or may not have happened, and one phone call settles it.
If you are in the village
Older houses, tight mechanical spaces, ductwork threaded where it would fit, and venting that may run through masonry. If your furnace and water heater share a chimney and you are considering a high efficiency furnace that vents out a side wall, the water heater is left alone on a flue sized for two appliances. Code requires the chimney to be examined before the new appliance goes in, and the fix is a liner or a power vent water heater. That belongs in the quote rather than in a call three weeks later.
When replacement makes sense
Under ten years, repair almost every time, after checking the warranty. Past fifteen, if the repair is more than a third of a replacement, replace it.
A furnace alone runs $4,498 to $12,300 installed; a furnace and air conditioner together $8,898 to $23,000 by system size. Because both went in with the house here, replacing them together beats two jobs two years apart. Larger houses land in the upper half of those ranges.
Washington Gas is currently paying $500 on a furnace at 95.1 to 96.9 percent efficiency, $700 at 97 and up, and $100 on a smart thermostat, through contractors in its network. The federal tax credit ended for anything placed in service after December 31, 2025.
The estimator gives you the installed range for your system size in about two minutes with no phone number.
October list
Run every system for an hour, including any serving a room you rarely use, and listen to the first two minutes: inducer, igniter, burners, blower, in order, no hesitation. Change every filter. Note the model and serial number for the warranty question. And check the carbon monoxide alarms, because the ones installed with these houses are approaching the end of their ten year service life.
SwiftPro repairs heating systems across Aldie and Loudoun County. Call (703) 997-9757 or book online.
