Looking to the Future - Appleton Campbell

One of Fauquier’s oldest family-run businesses is expanding in 2020. Since the mid 1970s, Appleton Campbell has served our community’s homeowners’ HVAC, plumbing, and electrical needs with quality and efficient customer service, operating out of a historic building in old town which was once the ice house and power plant for the town. Now in its fifth decade, the owners are relocating operations to a new facility to streamline efficiency and accommodate the needs of the company as it grows. Lifestyle sat down with Heather Appleton to talk about this new era for Appleton Campbell.

The move in date for the new facility is on schedule for early spring 2020.

We began in January 1976, and we’ll be celebrating 44 years of serving Fauquier County and the surrounding areas this year. The company was started by Jim Appleton, the grandfather of our current president, Mike H. Appleton. He started the business with just one truck, and Mike started helping him. He was just 16 years old, so it was a great learning opportunity for him. Not only was he learning a trade, but he also learned a great deal about ethics and the value of hard work.

Flash forward to today, and Michael J. Appleton is the fourth generation to run the company. Our vibrant management team will continue to build on the strong bones and ethics set about by Jim Appleton all those years ago.

Scott Wayland, our current vice president, has also been a key player in the growth and family culture of the business for the past 25 years.

Michael Appleton, Mike Appleton, Heather Appleton & Scott Wayland Scott

Appleton Campbell offers plumbing, heating, air conditioning and residential electrical service repairs and replacements. Since 2007, Appleton Campbell has been committed to serving homeowners exclusively, rather than working on new construction and building projects.

After starting with just one employee and working for many builders throughout the first 30 years, we now have about 90 local employees. We encourage our staff to participate in the surrounding communities, and we’ve narrowed our business focus to serving only homeowners. Our company’s growth philosophy is rooted in teamwork, and we strive to take care of our employees so they can take great care of our customers.

Michael and Mike at the June 2018 ground breaking

We are all very excited about the new facility. The new structure allows us to gain a bit of extra square footage, but we’ll have enough parking for all of our employees and service vehicles. The town has been very gracious in allowing us to use the parking lot next to the dog park for our employee vehicles, but we’re glad to finally have enough parking to accommodate all of them without using a municipal lot.

The new office will be right next to Home Depot, off of Alwington Boulevard in Warrenton. It’s a little more square footage than our current office building once you include the warehouse we have rented for the past few years across town. The new space will allow us to operate both from a single building, rather than having them separated.

Just having the new parking and the warehouse all under one roof will be a huge improvement. The new office will also have a larger training room, which is a great need for us.

The office layout — and the extra garage doors for loading and stocking our vehicles — will improve our timeliness and efficiency, allowing us to complete tasks more quickly.

The new structure will give us the opportunity to grow and better serve Fauquier and eight surrounding counties (Culpeper, Madison, Orange, Rappahannock, Stafford, Loudoun, Prince William, and Fairfax) as we look ahead to the next 48 years of Appleton Campbell offering value and excellence to area residents.