The Census puts the median owner home in the Town of Leesburg at 1996, and about four in ten homes in town went up between 1980 and 1999. In most of those houses the builder’s air conditioner has been replaced once already, so the condenser out back is often a second unit on the original line set and ductwork. Where an original still runs, it’s thirty or older, and any repair on it deserves a replacement price beside it.
Two in three owner homes in town heat with gas: a furnace inside with the cooling coil sitting on top of it, the condenser outside. Close to three in ten heat with electricity, and in a Leesburg house that usually means a heat pump, an outdoor unit that works January and July alike. A weak capacitor on one of those leaves you stuck in either season.
Downtown, in the Old and Historic District, plenty of houses are older than central air, and the Town wants the equipment that came later kept out of view. Its design guidelines for the district put outdoor mechanical units on the side or rear of the house, screened with plantings or a fence from the street, and rule out rooftop units on the front. A replacement that moves the condenser or runs new lines up a wall is exterior work, and the time to call the Town’s preservation staff.
Lansdowne, outside the town limits with the same 20176 mail, is newer: its median owner home dates to 2005. Houses finished from about 2005 to 2010 straddle the change from R-22 to R-410A equipment, so two neighbors on one street can own systems that take different refrigerant. The label plate on the condenser says which, and it matters before anyone quotes a leak repair.