Heat Pump Repair in Malvern, AR
Homes here need heat from November through March and cooling from May through September. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Hot Spring County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Malvern asks a lot of a heat pump
Your heat pump works ten months out of the year here, heating from November through March and cooling from May through September. That is most of the year with the system running, and most of the year for parts to wear down.
Winter nights average 33°F, cold enough that the heat pump leans on its defrost cycle and reversing valve to keep pulling heat from outside air. Summer afternoons average 91°F, and the compressor runs hard to keep up. Hot Spring County has seen 45 damaging wind events and 9 winter storms over the past ten years, and storms mean power blinks and drops. Most heat pumps come back on by themselves once power returns, but a hard outage during a cold night or a hot afternoon is when you notice the house has stopped keeping up.
- 5 months
- November through March, your system heats
- 5 months
- May through September, it cools
- 33°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 belongs to the contractor, not the job, so it stays in place from one repair to the next. Arkansas records who holds it, and no county or city in the state can require its own HVAC license on top of that. One state list, one standard.
A heat pump repair almost always means opening the refrigerant side to check the charge or the coil. Federal law requires EPA Section 608 certification for that, in every state, including Arkansas. So the contractor working on your heat pump is answering to two things here. The state license that put them on record, and the federal certification that lets them touch the refrigerant at all.
Source: Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing
- 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 under body temperature. If the air is cold with no warmth to it at all, check that the outdoor unit is running and not caked in ice. A system stuck in defrost, a low refrigerant charge, or a reversing valve that will not switch can all leave you with air that never warms up, and any of those needs a licensed contractor to sort out.
- Why is there ice on my heat pump?
- Some frost on the outdoor unit in winter is normal. Your heat pump goes into defrost on its own every so often to melt it off, so a thin coat that clears within an hour or two is nothing to worry about. Thick ice that builds back fast, or ice that is still there after several hours, usually means the defrost cycle isn't kicking in, airflow is blocked, or the refrigerant charge is low, and that calls for a licensed contractor.
- Why is my heat pump running but not cooling?
- The most common cause is a dirty filter or blocked outdoor unit choking off airflow, so check the filter first and clear anything piled against the outdoor coil. If the filter is clean and the outside unit has room to breathe, a low refrigerant charge or a failing compressor could be behind it. On a 91°F afternoon a struggling system falls further behind, so it's worth getting a licensed contractor out before it stops cooling altogether.