Furnace and heating repair in Broad Run.

Of the 660 owner homes the Census counts in ZIP 20137, just over half heat with electricity, close to three in ten with propane and about one in seven with oil. It finds none on utility gas. On propane, the usual first suspects are a dirty flame sensor, cleaned for $95 to $180, and a worn igniter, $240 to $410 to replace. A heat pump leans on its defrost control, reversing valve and backup strips. An oil burner is outside what we repair.

At Warrenton 3 SE, January runs a daytime high near 42 and a night low near 25, and about 98 nights a year fall to freezing or below. Heating degree days outnumber cooling ones by more than four to one, and Fauquier County sizes heating systems to a 17 degree design night. Nights near that figure are where a tired control board, $550 to $1,180, gives out.

Two winters stand out. NWS put the January 22 to 24, 2016 blizzard at 24 to 36 inches across Northern Fauquier, and an ice storm that February 14 and 15 left 0.2 to 0.3 inch. A heat pump’s outdoor coil buried in snow or glazed with ice can’t pull heat from the air, and the strips carry the house at electric prices. A condensing propane furnace vents through plastic pipes in an outside wall, and a drift over them trips its safety.

Late January 2026 put Extreme Cold Warnings on the Northern Fauquier zone for January 27, 30 and 31. A furnace that gets through the first of those nights and quits on the second was already weak. Where propane runs a furnace, a water heater or a dryer, a working carbon monoxide alarm matters; Fauquier County Fire Rescue takes alarm requests through a form on its Public Education page.