Heating, cooling and plumbing in Lorton, from Laurel Hill out to Mason Neck.
Laurel Hill’s houses are mostly this century’s, Newington leans to 1980s townhouses, and Mason Neck lots often drain to a septic tank. What we find in Lorton.
- Prices in writing, first
- Dedicated HVAC and plumbing teams
- Virginia license #2705192276
Get your price in writing
Three Census places, three eras of house, one Lorton mailing address.
The Census splits the Lorton area into three places, and the median owner home in them was built in 1981, 2001 and 2002.
Laurel Hill grew up around the old Lorton prison grounds, which Fairfax County took title to on July 15, 2002, and its houses belong to this century: about six in ten owner homes there went up after 2000, the median one in 2002. Better than eight in ten owners heat with gas. Picture a gas furnace and a gas water heater that came with the house, PEX or copper supply, and both appliances now at the age when the first big parts wear out.
The Lorton Census place is the mixed one: about half its homes built since 2000, a quarter of them in condo and apartment buildings, and more than a third of all its homes rented. Newington, the place on the north edge of town that runs over into Springfield’s ZIP codes, is the oldest: median 1981, more than half townhouses, and close to six in ten owners on electric heat, so heat pumps and electric water heaters, and houses old enough that grey polybutylene supply pipe is worth checking for.
Then there are the big lots. Fairfax County’s health department has septic permits on file for more than a thousand Lorton properties, about half of them out on Mason Neck along Gunston Road, River Drive and Belmont Boulevard, and most of the rest along Old Colchester Road and off Ox, Hooes and Lorton Roads. Most of those houses drain to a tank in the yard, not a county main.
One phone number for the heat, the air and the pipes.
Our HVAC techs and our plumbers work out of the same shop and answer the same phone, so a Laurel Hill furnace that won’t light and a Mason Neck drain that won’t clear are one call.
Heating
Six in ten Lorton owners heat with gas, and in Laurel Hill it’s better than eight in ten, mostly furnaces that went in with the house. Newington is where the heat pumps are. The Lorton heating write-up covers the warranty check on a newer furnace and the airflow problems in an older house.
Cooling
Where the house burns gas, a central air conditioner sits outside and borrows the furnace’s blower indoors. In a Newington townhouse one heat pump does both jobs, with the outdoor units lined up side by side out back. AC repair, duct cleaning and dryer vent cleaning all come out of the same published price book.
Plumbing
Lorton is really two plumbing towns: the streets on county sewer, where the homeowner owns the lateral all the way to the main, and the septic lots, where the line out of the house ends at a tank. The water comes from Fairfax Water, mostly by way of its Griffith plant here in Lorton.
One price book, from Laurel Hill to Mason Neck.
Lorton gets the same published prices as every other town we work in, and you see the number in writing before anybody starts.
- AC run capacitor replaced$240 to $370
- Refrigerant topped up$190 to $740
- Condensate drain cleared$175 to $420
- Repair diagnostic visitabout $99
- Drain cleaning, one fixture$200 to $800
- Main sewer line cleaning$550 to $1,650
- Leak detection$200 to $500
- Pressure reducing valve replacement$500 to $1,000
- Water heater, tank, installed$2,757 to $7,494
The rows above are lifted straight from the books on our plumbing and AC repair pages. If the water heater is the problem, the water heater estimator prices a replacement with the permit already in it.
Weighing a new furnace or air conditioner against one more repair? Our HVAC estimator gives an installed range sized to your house, so you can hold the two numbers side by side.
One county, a water plant in town, and a lot of septic tanks.
Your water
Fairfax Water. It says homes toward the south end of the county generally get water from its Griffith plant, which stands in Lorton and treats Occoquan Reservoir water; Griffith replaced the old Lorton plant in 2006. Its 2025 tests ran 3.0 to 8.0 grains per gallon, a little softer than the north county’s Potomac water and still enough to leave scale in a tank.
Reports: Fairfax Water, 3 to 10.8 gpg.
Your permit office
Fairfax County, at every Lorton address. Any gas appliance change needs a county permit, the same model in the same spot included, and the vent gets certified with it; in Laurel Hill, where better than eight in ten homes burn gas, that’s most furnace and water heater swaps. A water heater that dies outright can be replaced first, with the permit applied for by the next working day.
Permit pages: Fairfax County.
Your sewer line, or your septic tank
On county sewer, the code puts the whole lateral on you, from the house to the county main, the piece under the road included. On a septic lot the county draws the line at the foundation: inside is a plumber’s job, the tank and the field belong to a licensed septic contractor, and the tank gets pumped at least every five years, with each pump-out logged in the county’s PLUS system.
Sources: Fairfax County Code 65-6-5 and Fairfax County Health Department on septic systems.
What our customers say.
They sent a technician to my home in the same evening and continued to following up.
Swiftpro came out the same day I called when my AC was out and had it fixed in less than an hour after arriving.
I placed an emergency call for pipes that had frozen and burst in my bathroom in the very early morning.
5.0 stars across 884 Google reviews. Read them on our reviews page.
Voted a Nextdoor Neighborhood Faves winner two years running: 2026 in 30 Northern Virginia neighborhoods, 2025 in Emerald Chase (Herndon) and Hunters Run (Chantilly).
Listed in both the HVAC and Plumbing categories of Northern Virginia Magazine’s Best Home Experts directory, which is exactly how we’re built: a dedicated HVAC team and a dedicated plumbing team.
All of 22079, Newington’s edge to Mason Neck.
22079: Laurel Hill and the streets off Silverbrook Road and Laurel Crest Drive, Lorton Station and Lewis Chapel Road, Gunston, the Route 1 corridor, the big lots off Ox and Hooes Roads, and Mason Neck out to High Point Road. Next door:
Questions we hear from Lorton.
Does SwiftPro work in Laurel Hill and out on Mason Neck?
Yes. SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing covers all of 22079: Laurel Hill, Lorton Station, Gunston, the Route 1 corridor, the lots off Ox and Hooes Roads, and Mason Neck. All of it is Fairfax County, so one permit office answers for every address, and the water company is Fairfax Water throughout.
How can I tell whether my Lorton house is on septic?
Look for a sewer charge on the water bill. Fairfax County says public sewer is billed quarterly, usually through Fairfax Water, so a bill without one usually means a tank. The county’s PLUS system also keeps septic permits and pump-out records by address, and on Mason Neck and the big lots off Ox and Hooes Roads, a tank is common.
Where does Lorton’s tap water come from?
Mostly the Occoquan Reservoir. Fairfax Water says homes toward the south of the county generally get water from its Griffith plant, and Griffith is in Lorton. Its 2025 tests ran 51 to 137 milligrams per liter of hardness, about 3 to 8 grains per gallon: softest in July and August, hardest in January and November.
Why do so many of the older Lorton townhouses run on heat pumps?
In the Newington Census place, where the median home went up in 1981 and more than half are townhouses, close to six in ten owners heat with electricity. In a townhouse that usually means a heat pump with backup heat strips, often next to an electric water heater. Laurel Hill is the reverse, with better than eight in ten on gas.
Does a gas water heater swap in Lorton need a permit?
Yes. Every gas water heater change in Fairfax County takes a permit, even a straight swap, and the county wants the vent certified with it. If the old tank has already failed, Virginia lets the new one go in first, as long as the application reaches the county the next working day. Our water heater estimator builds the permit into every price.
Sewer or septic, gas or heat pump, tell us your street.
Call and tell us the street. We’ll say what a house there usually has, roughly what the fix runs, and the first opening we have.
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing is a licensed, BBB Accredited (A rating), independently owned heating, cooling and plumbing company serving Northern Virginia, including Lorton, Springfield, Woodbridge and Fairfax Station. SwiftPro holds Virginia contractor license #2705192276, is a Trane Comfort Specialist, Rheem Pro Partner and Mitsubishi Diamond Contractor, holds 5.0 stars across 884 Google reviews, was voted a Nextdoor Neighborhood Faves winner two years running, for 2026 in 30 Northern Virginia neighborhoods and for 2025 in Emerald Chase (Herndon) and Hunters Run (Chantilly), and is listed in both the HVAC and Plumbing categories of Northern Virginia Magazine’s Best Home Experts directory. SwiftPro maintains a dedicated HVAC team and a dedicated plumbing team. More at goswiftpro.com.
In Lorton, SwiftPro repairs and replaces furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioners and ductless mini-splits, cleans air ducts and dryer vents, and handles plumbing from drains and leaks to water heaters, sewer laterals and the line out to a septic tank, everywhere in 22079.
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing, 4230 Lafayette Center Dr, Suite N, Chantilly, VA 20151, (703) 997-9757. Every town we serve is on the town-by-town guide.