Heat Pump Repair in Plano, TX
Homes here need heat from November through March and cooling from May through October. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Collin County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eleven months of run time wears a heat pump down
Your heat pump works almost all year in Plano. It runs May through October to cool the house against afternoons averaging 93°F, then switches over and runs November through March on nights that average 36°F. That is eleven months with barely a break, and the switch between heating and cooling modes puts its own strain on the reversing valve.
About half of homes here heat with electricity, which usually means the heat pump itself, so when it stops there is often nothing else to fall back on. Collin County has seen 22 winter storms and 86 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across Texas a third of households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. A heat pump that comes back on wrong after an outage, or won't hold up under a hard freeze, leaves a house with no heat at the worst time to be without it.
- 5 months
- November through March, your system heats
- 6 months
- May through October, it cools
- 36°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 93°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Texas requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
Texas licenses the contractor, not the job, so the license that covers your heat pump repair is the same one that covers every other job that contractor takes on. TDLR issues that license, and it applies to the business as a whole rather than to this repair specifically.
Your heat pump runs on refrigerant, and opening that side of the system is regulated everywhere in the country, not just Texas. Whoever works on it needs EPA Section 608 certification for that part of the job, separate from the state license that covers the work overall.
Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
- Why is my heat pump blowing cold air?
- In heating mode, a heat pump puts out air that feels cool next to your skin even when it is working right, because the air leaving the vents is warmer than the room but still well below body temperature. If the air is truly cold and the house is not warming up, check that the thermostat is set to heat and not fan only. If it is set right and you still feel no warmth, the system may have switched to backup electric heat only, or the outdoor unit may have iced over and stopped running. That calls for a contractor to look at the unit.
- Why is there ice on my heat pump?
- Some frost on the outdoor unit in cold weather is normal. A heat pump pulls heat from outside air, and it runs a defrost cycle on its own to clear the coil every so often, usually melting the frost off within a few minutes. Thick ice that stays, or ice that builds up again right after defrost, is not normal. That points to a fan that has stopped turning, low refrigerant, or a defrost control that has failed, and any of those needs a contractor to fix.
- Why is my heat pump running but not cooling?
- If the outdoor unit is running but the air coming out of your vents is not cold, the most likely cause is low refrigerant or a blocked airflow path. Check the air filter first, since a clogged one starves the indoor coil of air and can make it ice over even in summer. If the filter is clean and the unit still is not cooling, the coil could already be frozen, or the compressor could be running without moving refrigerant properly. Either one needs a contractor to diagnose, since opening the refrigerant lines takes a license in Texas.