Heat Pump Services in Peachtree Corners

Think of a heat pump as an air conditioner with a reverse gear. All summer it pulls heat out of the house and dumps it outside. All winter it does the opposite, scavenging heat from the outdoor air and bringing it in, through the very same outdoor unit. With our long cooling season and winters that are cold only now and then, that is a smart way to heat and cool, and it also means the thing works almost every week of the year. My crew repairs, replaces and installs heat pumps, including dual-fuel setups where a gas furnace takes the coldest mornings. I spend a fair amount of time on the phone reassuring people about normal behavior. On a cold, damp day the outdoor coil frosts up, and the heat pump melts it off with a defrost cycle: the outdoor fan stops, a cloud of steam rises and the reversing valve shifts with a loud whoosh. Nothing is broken. What does need a tech: an outdoor unit buried in solid ice, cold air from the registers in heat mode, backup heat that never shuts off while the bill climbs, or a system that will not change between heating and cooling. The usual suspects there are a defrost control or its sensor that has failed, a reversing valve that hangs up, a short refrigerant charge, a worn outdoor fan motor or a thermostat set to call for backup heat too early. With dual-fuel equipment, my crew also sets the outdoor temperature where the furnace takes over so the switch is not too early or too late. When the heat pump is worn out, we size the replacement to both floors and the ductwork and translate the SEER2 and HSPF2 numbers into plain English.