Imagine you’re sitting at home enjoying the warmth that’s being produced by your heat pump. We’re entering the holiday season, so perhaps you’re listening to some seasonal tunes, and you’re drinking a warm cup of coffee or cocoa. Doesn’t that sound like a great way to spend the day?
Although, when cool air starts to blow in from your heat pump, it can be hard not to panic. The system has been regularly tuned up and it’s in good shape, so what can be wrong with it this time? Do you need heating repair in Buffalo Grove, IL?
The truth is that depending on what’s going on with your heating system and the temperature outdoors, you might not. We want to talk about the heat pump’s “defrost mode” and why homeowners might be worried about something that’s actually a good thing.
What Is the Defrost Mode?
When temperatures dip below freezing, your heat pump is still able to draw heat from the air and deposit it indoors. There’s just one slight problem when this happens. There’s less heat to draw from the outside air and your heat pump has to work longer and harder to do the same process it would with warmer temperatures.
Sometimes, the coils outside can dip to cold levels and they could freeze. This is a problem since the whole heating process grinds to a halt if your heat pump’s outside components freeze up.
This is when your heat pump goes into “defrost mode.” It starts running in reverse and actually drawing heat from inside your home and passing it through the coils of the system until it reaches a normalized 57 degrees. Then, it can go back to bringing heat into your home. But if you’re surprised by cool air flushing into your house, this is most likely the reason.
How to Avoid This From Happening
While this is a nifty process that heat pumps can use to defrost and recover from ice-cold temperatures, it’s never really that good of a thing to have happen. After all, nobody likes having cool air blown on them in the middle of the fall or winter when temperatures are low.
One way to help alleviate this problem is to make sure that there’s heat to spare in your home when the system needs to defrost. Try keeping temperatures above the mid-50s when running your heat pump. This will make sure that your system has heat to draw from your home when it starts to freeze. And, to make things even better, you won’t fear the recovery mode as much because your home will still remain pretty warm.
We Can Help Solve Your Problem
Here’s one small problem. If your heat pump is blowing cool air into your home continuously during the heating season, then your heat pump might just be broken. Sometimes they can have trouble switching from cooling to heating modes, and they can even react with a faulty reversing valve. Either way, your system might need repairs and we can be the ones to provide them.
Call Roberts Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. for heat pump repairs you can count on!