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Comfortable homes offer a healthier living and working environment, especially for remote workers. Heat pumps are used to warm your home during the chilling cold winter and cool it during the hot summer.

A heat pump works like a standard air conditioner during summer by venting heated air from inside your living space to outside. On the other hand, the unit extracts heat from the outside during cold seasons, releasing the warmth inside your space.

Why Heat Pumps?

Unlike other heating alternatives, heat pumps don’t create heat; they move heat from one place to another. Therefore, they consume less power (the small amount needed to run the compressor), this makes them energy-efficient. Energy efficiency also means low running costs.

A heat pump offers precise comfort control. With the help of a thermostat, your room maintains the desired room temperature, without heating or cooling above or below it.

Common Heat Pump Hitches and How to Troubleshoot

Flashing Lights

While flashing lights indicate a number of possible hitches, it is nothing that needs to cause concern. First, we want to ensure that your multi-head heat pump system is set to the same modes on the remotes, and thermostats. For example, your living room wall head unit, and your bedroom wall head unit need to both be in cooling, heating, or auto – otherwise you will see flashing lights. If you have a thermostat and a remote controlling your heating system, you want to ensure that they are both set to the same mode as well, either heating, cooling, or auto. Turn your system off, and then on again. This is an easy, quick way to get your heat or cooling back in action. However, if this method does not work, you can contact your go-to air conditioner maintenance company to come and take a look at the problem for you.

Your heat pump will heat, and it will cool- but your system will not heat and cool at the same time.

Heat Pump Not Running

The easiest troubleshooting trick for a Heat Pump that appears to not be working, is to complete a firm reset. This means turning power off to the system at the main breaker for a full 15 minutes – then let the system power back up and monitor it for 1 hour. Needing to complete a firm reset if very common, and will not cause harm to your system. When your heat pump is in the starting up phase, we recommend turning the heat on a high setting to encourage the outdoor unit to run at its full capacity.

The hitch may also be caused by thermostat issues or the unit not receiving power. First, make sure to set the thermostat correctly, and if you’ve replaced it recently, the wiring may be improperly connected. It’s also important to get the right thermostat replaced from trusted dealers because a thermostat other than a heat pump’s type won’t work.

If your heat pump has auxiliary heat, your circuit breaker or fuses may have tripped. Check and reset them as required. If you don’t have the necessary knowledge of working with the heat pumps breakers, calling one of our HVAC technicians is the best recommendation.

My Heat Pump Isn’t Heating and Cooling Right

If your unit is producing cooler or hotter air than what you are expecting, we recommend the following:

• Ensure the thermostat settings are right. If it is set correctly and you’re still feeling cold, you can raise the temperatures by 5 degrees.
• Check that the heating registers are open, and the filters are not dirty. Clean or replace dirty filters.
• If your heat system has auxiliary heating elements, be sure they’re working. Consider also cleaning coils in the condensing component located outside.

Note: heat pumps sometimes switch to defrost mode to prevent icing and, in such cases, expect temporary cold air output.

If these steps are unsuccessful, get one of our professional HVAC technicians to repair the system.

Blower Not Working

Confirm the fan operation by switching the fan switch to ON and note if the fan does turn on.

If you know how to go about the adjustment, follow the manufacturer’s manual to reset the pointers. If not, you may want to book a repair with our heat pump specialist to fix this problem to avoid worsening the situation or damaging it.

Heat Pump Producing Noise

You don’t want to hear those unpleasant noises coming from the pump. If this is your situation, shut the unit and schedule a repair technician visit. Before booking a repair, check the following:

• Tighten the cover panels to minimize rattling noise. Similarly, noise may emanate from ductwork or loosened parts inside the air handler.
• A pinging or popping sound may be coming from a loose flap in the ductwork. Track the flap and make a small dent on the sheet preventing the sheet from moving during thermal expansion.

Often, these problems begin to show up once a heat pump has reached the end of its service life, and if that is the case, then you could try contacting any local heat pump manufacturer and book for a replacement. Else, you could always get hold of us, and we can send in one of our technicians and have the appliance repaired and working in no time.

Does Your Heat Pump Need Repair or Maintenance?

Coastal Heat Pumps is here to help. Our experienced and certified heat pump specialists provide state-of-the-art maintenance and repairs. Contact us to book a repair or maintenance and let us restore your home’s comfort, because at Coastal Heat Pumps we’re not comfortable until you are.