Heat Pump Installation in Conway, AR
A new system here will heat from November through April and cool from May through September every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Faulkner County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Conway asks for eleven months of heat or cooling a year
Your heat pump works nearly all year here. Heat runs November through April, cooling runs May through September, eleven months with barely a break between them. Winter nights average 32°F, mild enough that a heat pump can carry the load without much backup help. Summer afternoons average 91°F, so the compressor runs long hours all season.
A new split-system heat pump has to meet federal minimums of 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating. In a place that asks this much of the system, that rating is the floor, not the target. Almost two-thirds of homes in Faulkner County heat with electricity, which puts real weight on this one machine getting sized and installed right.
- 6 months
- November through April, your system heats
- 5 months
- May through September, it cools
- 32°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Arkansas requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license is tied to the contractor, not to this one job, so the same license that qualifies someone to work anywhere in Arkansas is what covers a heat pump install in Faulkner County. Counties and cities here cannot add their own HVAC license on top of it, so the state license is the only one that applies to whoever you hire.
For the install itself, the license covers the contractor, not an inspection of the work. In most cities and counties, putting in a heat pump needs a permit from the local building office and an inspection once the job is done, which is the check on the installation itself rather than on who did it.
Source: Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing
- Is a heat pump better than a furnace?
- It depends on what you're weighing. A heat pump handles both heating and cooling from one system, so you're not running separate equipment for your Conway winters and summers. A furnace only heats, and it burns gas or uses resistance heat rather than moving heat the way a heat pump does. With winter nights here averaging 32°F, a heat pump built to current standards will still keep up, but a contractor can walk through your home's setup and tell you which fits better.
- What's the difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner?
- An air conditioner only cools. A heat pump cools the same way in summer, but it can also run in reverse to heat your home in winter. Mechanically they share a lot of the same parts, the compressor, the coils, the refrigerant loop. The difference is the reversing valve that lets a heat pump send heat indoors instead of just pulling it out.
- Does a heat pump work in cold weather?
- Yes. A heat pump pulls heat from the outside air even when it's cold, because there's still heat in air well below freezing. With winter nights here averaging 32°F, a properly sized heat pump will keep up through a Conway winter. Systems built to today's federal minimum of 7.5 HSPF2 are rated for exactly this kind of climate, not just mild ones.