Heat Pump Repair in Gaffney, SC
Homes here need heat from October through April and cooling from May through September. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Cherokee County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Your heat pump runs almost every day of the year in Gaffney
Between the two seasons your system barely gets a rest. Winter nights averaging 32°F push it to run defrost cycles again and again, and summer afternoons near 88°F keep the compressor working hard the other half of the year. That kind of year-round demand wears on the reversing valve first, the part that switches the system between heat and cool. When it starts to fail, you get warm air blowing when you set it to heat, or the outdoor unit icing over and not clearing itself in defrost.
Most homes here heat with electricity, so when the heat pump goes down, there is often no backup keeping the house warm. And with storms knocking out power for a day or more in nearly half of South Carolina households last year, a heat pump that will not restart on its own after an outage can leave you cold for reasons that have nothing to do with the unit itself.
- 7 months
- October through April, your system heats
- 5 months
- May through September, it cools
- 32°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 88°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
- Why is my heat pump blowing cold air?
- In heat mode, a heat pump moves heat from outside air into your home, and that air comes out warm but not hot, usually around body temperature. If it feels cold to the touch, check your thermostat is set to heat, not fan only, since the fan setting pushes room temperature air through the vents with no heating at all. A heat pump stuck in defrost or a low refrigerant charge can also leave the air feeling cooler than it should. If the thermostat is set right and the air still feels cold, a contractor can check the refrigerant charge and the reversing valve, since a stuck reversing valve will run the system backward.
- Why is there ice on my heat pump?
- Some frost on the outdoor unit in winter is normal. Your heat pump pulls heat from the outside air, and moisture in that air collects and freezes on the coil, so it runs a defrost cycle on its own every so often to melt it off. Ice becomes a problem when it builds up thick, covers the coil solid, or never seems to melt between cycles. That points to a fan that has stopped turning, a low refrigerant charge, or a defrost control that has failed, and any of those needs a contractor to look at it before the ice damages the coil.
- Why is my heat pump running but not cooling?
- If the unit is running but the air is not cold, the most common cause is low refrigerant, often from a leak, which stops the system from pulling heat out of the air the way it should. A dirty outdoor coil covered in dirt or grass clippings can also stop it from shedding heat properly on the hot afternoons here, when temperatures push toward 88°F. Check that the outdoor unit has clear airflow around it and that your air filter is not clogged, since both starve the system of the airflow it needs. If it is still not cooling after that, a contractor will need to check the refrigerant charge and the compressor.