Ductless mini splits in Bealeton.

The Census counts about ninety homes in the Bealeton Census place built before 1940, from the decades when the village grew up around its railroad depot. Plenty of houses that old were built with no ductwork, and where none was ever added, a mini split is how they get cooling at all. One outdoor unit can run heads in several rooms, two zones for $11,000 to $15,000 installed, and the refrigerant lines run outside under a cover instead of being fished through old plaster.

Most of Bealeton is much younger, and the 1990s subdivisions went up mostly on half-acre lots, the County’s plan says. A lot that size leaves room to grow: a sunroom off the back, a family room addition, a converted garage, a detached shop. None of those were on the original duct plan, and stretching a run out to them shortchanges the rooms already on it. A head in the new room, on its own small outdoor unit, heats and cools it without asking anything of the main system.

The 1980s houses, about 495 by the Census count, are on their second or third outdoor unit, and some picked up a finished basement or a room over the garage along the way. Those rooms were never sized into the original ducts, so they can run cold in January and stuffy in July while the rest of the house is fine. One head there fixes the room without resizing the whole system.

In Bealeton’s apartment and condo buildings, which hold about one home in five, an outdoor unit on the building needs the association’s yes before anything is priced, and a renter needs the landlord’s. Bealeton has no town government, so whatever paperwork a mini split needs comes from Fauquier County alone.