Don’t Get Spooked into Forgetting About Heat Pump Maintenance

Your heat pump works hard all year long providing your Mid-Atlantic home with cooled and heated airflow. So, you certainly want the system to run as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, there are no tricks to operating your heat pump efficiently. Just use these heat pump maintenance checklists — one for you and one for your HVAC technician.

Homeowner’s Heat Pump Maintenance Checklist

• Check filter: Buy a box of high-quality filters so that you always have a fresh one on hand. Check your filters according to manufacturer’s suggestion, and stick to it. A dirty air filter can reduce heat pump efficiency by 10 to 15 percent.
• Update thermostat: Do you need to update your temperature settings for the heating months? Use set-back temperatures of 10 to 15 degrees when no one is home. Otherwise, set the temperature to 68 degrees.
• Clean evaporator: Use a foaming coil cleaner to remove the grime and dirt that has collected on the evaporator coil over the summer months.
• Clean condenser: Use foaming coil cleaner, as well, to clean the condenser coil in the outdoor unit. If you have a rooftop heat pump, let your HVAC technician handle the cleaning tasks.
• Operational best practices: If your heat pump doesn’t use gas for backup heating, make sure your thermostat is compatible with heat pumps so that electric backup heat isn’t activated following turn-back periods.

Professional Heat Pump Maintenance

Your HVAC technician is going to perform all of the steps on your heat pump maintenance list. Additionally, he or she will perform a complete system diagnostics of electrical functions, check refrigerant charge, clear the drain line and condensate pan, clean the blower, inspect the ducts for air leaks, measure airflow and much more.

While your service checklist is important to help maintain peak heat pump performance, nothing replaces professional preventive maintenance each fall and spring.

At Sobieski Services, Inc., our goal is to help our customers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey learn more about energy and home comfort issues — especially HVAC and plumbing issues — so that they can save money and live in healthier, more comfortable homes.