Most homes here rely on heat pumps for year-round comfort, making reliable repairs essential when problems arise. Heat pumps cool in summer and heat in winter, using reversing valves, defrost controls, and backup heat that require expertise. We repair all major brands, whether we installed them or not.
You'll always receive upfront, by-the-job pricing, plus honest repair-or-replace guidance so you make the best decision for your home.
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Reversing valve failure. The reversing valve switches your system between heating and cooling, and failures can leave you with cold air in winter or warm air in summer. Accurate diagnosis is key to avoiding unnecessary repair costs.
Defrost control problems. During heating mode, frost can build up on the outdoor coil, so your heat pump automatically enters defrost mode to melt it. If the defrost system fails, ice can cover the unit and reduce heating performance, often going unnoticed until cold weather arrives.
Auxiliary heat failures. As temperatures drop, heat pumps rely on electric backup heat. They can fail without warning; it's one of the most common cold-weather heat pump issues, making fall maintenance important.
Auxiliary lockout set wrong. A configuration issue rather than a failure. Set too low and backup never engages when you need it. Set too high and it runs constantly in mild weather, producing an electric bill that alarms people. Frequently the fix is free and the diagnosis is the whole job.
Capacitors and contactors. The most common failure overall. Capacitors give the compressor and fan motors the push to start. Contactors switch the outdoor unit. Both wear with heat and runtime, and on coastal properties corroded electrical connections accelerate both considerably.
Refrigerant loss. Even a small refrigerant loss can reduce heating. Adding refrigerant is only a temporary fix if there's a leak, so we always identify and address the source of the problem whenever possible.
Compressor failure. Expensive, and usually the end of a long process. Frequently preceded by months of running against elevated head pressure from a dirty or corroded outdoor coil.
Coastal electrical corrosion. On coastal properties, salty air accelerates corrosion of electrical connections and components, damaging them. If the same parts keep failing, corrosion is often why.
This is the call we get most during a cold snap, so it is worth understanding the sorting before you dial.
Normal, not a failure: heat pump supply air is cooler than furnace supply air. A furnace delivers air well over 100 degrees. A heat pump typically delivers air in the mid to high 90s, which is warmer than the room but can feel cool against your hand. Many homeowners new to heat pumps report a problem that is simply how the equipment works.
Also normal: during a defrost cycle the system briefly runs in reverse, and you may see steam off the outdoor unit and feel cooler air indoors for several minutes. If it clears on its own within about ten minutes, that was defrost doing its job.
Actually a problem: air that is genuinely cold rather than merely cooler, the outdoor unit encased in ice that does not clear, or the house steadily losing temperature while the system runs. Those point to a stuck reversing valve, a failed defrost control, low charge, or backup heat that is not engaging.
Worth trying before you call: switch the thermostat to emergency heat. That bypasses the heat pump and runs the backup strips directly. If you get real heat, you have narrowed the problem to the heat pump side and you have a way to stay warm overnight. If you get nothing, the backup heat is also involved. Either answer makes our visit faster and cheaper.
We will give you both numbers rather than one.
Repair generally makes sense when:
Replacement deserves serious consideration when:
The specific case worth naming: a reversing valve failure on a system past fifteen years. The valve is a major component, the labor is significant, and you are investing heavily in equipment whose remaining life is limited. That is the point where we run the replacement number alongside it and let you decide with real figures rather than pressure.
Refrigerant transition context. Systems built through 2024 generally use R-410A. New equipment now uses R-454B or R-32. R-410A is not disappearing overnight, but it is in phase-down, and cost and availability move in one direction over the life of an aging system. If your equipment predates R-410A and uses R-22, that is already a strong replacement signal on its own.
A diagnosis is not putting a hand in front of a vent.
You get a written summary of what we found, what we did, and what we are watching.
On Pensacola Beach, Perdido Key, the Gulf Breeze peninsula, Navarre Beach, and the Pensacola bayfront, heat pumps face a problem inland systems do not.
Salt corrodes the outdoor coil, which reduces the surface area available to move heat. That raises operating pressures, cuts capacity, and increases the load on the compressor. It also corrodes electrical terminals, which is the mechanism behind the repeated capacitor and contactor failures coastal homeowners come to accept as normal.
When we diagnose a coastal heat pump we assess coil condition as part of the visit rather than only addressing the failed part, because on a heavily corroded system the part you are replacing is a symptom. See the Coastal Advantage Plan for the protection side of this.
Northwest Florida gets somewhere between three and eight genuinely cold nights a year. That is exactly what makes heating failures worse rather than better.
Your backup heat strips, sequencers, and relays sit unused for eight or nine months. They fail during that period without announcing it. The system continues to appear functional, because the heat pump alone handles mild weather fine. Then a freeze arrives, the heat pump cannot carry the load alone, backup does not engage, and the house will not get warm.
Because everyone discovers this in the same 48 hours, every HVAC company in both counties is oversubscribed simultaneously.
Test your heat in September or October. Run it for 15 minutes, confirm you get genuine warmth, and switch to emergency heat briefly to confirm backup works. Or schedule a fall maintenance visit, where we test each stage of auxiliary heat individually rather than confirming that something warm comes out. That is included in both the Advantage Plan and Coastal Advantage Plan.
Last reviewed: August 2026
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