Heat Pump Installation in Summerville, SC
A new system here will heat from November through March and cool from May through October every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Dorchester County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eleven months of work for a Summerville heat pump
Summerville only gets a real break from heating or cooling about one month a year. Heat runs November through March, on nights that average 38°F. Cooling runs May through October, six months of it, with afternoons averaging 91°F.
A new split-system heat pump installed here has to meet the federal minimum of 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating. Most homes in the area heat with electricity, so on those cold nights the heat pump is the whole system, not backup to something else. Dorchester County sees a lot of damaging wind, and with 45% of South Carolina households losing power for at least 24 hours in 2024, it is worth asking how a new system comes back on after an outage, along with how well it heats and cools.
- 5 months
- November through March, your system heats
- 6 months
- May through October, it cools
- 38°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- Is a heat pump better than a furnace?
- For Summerville, a heat pump makes sense because it also does your cooling for the six months a year you need it. Winters here only get down to an average low of 38°F, which is mild enough that a heat pump can carry the heating load without much strain. A furnace only heats. A heat pump handles both jobs with one system, which matters when you need cooling from May through October and heat from November through March.
- What's the difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner?
- An air conditioner only moves heat out of your home. A heat pump does that too, but it can also run in reverse and move heat into your home, so it works as your heat source in winter. The parts inside are similar, the coil, the compressor, the refrigerant lines. What sets a heat pump apart is the reversing valve that lets it switch direction.
- Does a heat pump work in cold weather?
- Yes, and in Summerville it works well, since winter nights average 38°F, which is within the range a heat pump handles efficiently. Heat pumps lose some capacity as the outdoor temperature drops, but Summerville doesn't see the kind of hard freezes that push a heat pump to its limit. Any new split-system heat pump sold today has to meet a federal minimum of 7.5 HSPF2 for heating, so it's built to perform through a winter like this one.