Heat Pump Repair & Installation in San Antonio, TX

Yes, with a caveat. As the outdoor temperature drops into the 20s, a standard heat pump extracts less heat from the outside air and calls on its electric auxiliary strips to make up the difference. If those strips are sized correctly, wired correctly and working, the house stays warm; it just costs more to run for those few days. During February 2021 the homes that struggled were usually ones where the strips had failed silently, the thermostat was not staging them in, or the outdoor unit had a pre-existing fault. That is why we test auxiliary heat at every fall tune-up. Newer cold-climate heat pumps hold capacity to lower temperatures than older models, and a dual-fuel setup with a gas furnace as backup removes the concern entirely.

Not quite. Auxiliary heat is automatic: the thermostat turns on the electric strips alongside the heat pump when the heat pump alone cannot keep up, then turns them off again. Emergency heat is a manual setting that shuts the outdoor unit off completely and runs the strips by themselves. Use emergency heat only when the outdoor unit has failed or is iced solid and you are waiting for a repair; it will keep the house warm but at a much higher cost. If you find the emergency heat setting was left on from last winter, that explains a high bill. If the aux indicator is on during mild weather when you have not touched anything, the heat pump has a problem and it is worth a call.

Without a gas line, your practical choices are a heat pump or an electric furnace, which is just a blower with heat strips. Of the two, the heat pump is far cheaper to run for most of a San Antonio winter, because it moves heat rather than generating it. An electric furnace uses the strips for every minute of heating, which is what a heat pump does only during a freeze. If your current system is an electric furnace paired with a straight air conditioner, replacing the pair with a heat pump at the next changeout is usually the right move. We will price it against a like-for-like replacement so you can see the difference in writing, and financing through Service Finance Company is available, subject to credit approval.

Less time than the same unit would last somewhere it only ran half the year, because a heat pump here works the long cooling season and then keeps working through winter. Maintenance is what stretches that life: a clean outdoor coil, a correct refrigerant charge, working defrost and strips, and a drain that does not back up. Two tune-ups a year, one before summer and one before winter, is the schedule we recommend, and it is what Care Club provides for $9.99 a month. When a heat pump does reach the end, the signs are the same as for any air conditioner: rising bills, repeated repairs and a compressor that struggles to start on a hot afternoon.