When the FPL bill jumps in August, the heat pump is usually the one telling on itself

The short answer to the long bill

If your heat pump is more than a few years old, the house is no cooler than it was in June, and the August statement from FPL is noticeably higher than last August’s, the cause is almost always one of three things, and all three are maintenance:

1. A dirty outdoor coil. Pollen off the oaks and pines from February through May, then mill and road dust, coat the coil and make the compressor run longer to shed the same heat.
2. A low refrigerant charge from a small leak that has been growing all season.
3. A weak capacitor or tired contactor making the compressor and fan motors draw more current than they should.

A tune-up addresses all three, and most Palatka homes see the next bill come back toward normal. That is the quick version. Below is the why and the how.

Why the bill moves before anything else does

A heat pump does not usually fail all at once. It gets gradually less efficient, and because the thermostat still eventually reaches its number, nobody notices the house. The electric meter notices. Run time is what you pay for, and every one of the three problems above adds run time.

The river basin makes this sharper than it would be on the coast. July highs around 92 and dew points that stay oppressive through September mean the heat pump runs most of the afternoon and well into the night even when healthy. A coil at half efficiency in that environment does not add ten percent to the bill; it can add a great deal more, and it drags the compressor toward an early failure at the same time.

There is a winter version of the same story. A heat pump whose defrost control has failed or whose charge is low will quietly hand the heating load to its electric strips, which cost several times as much to run. Clay Electric members out toward Interlachen and Melrose see that one in the February bill. The fall tune-up is what catches it.

What a heat pump tune-up has to include here

A tune-up that fits Putnam County equipment covers both seasons and the local hazards:

• Outdoor coil cleaning, chemically, not just a rinse, because the pollen load here cakes.
• Electrical testing under load: capacitor, contactor, compressor and fan amp draws. Rural lightning weakens these parts quietly.
• Refrigerant charge by superheat and subcooling, with a leak flag if it has drifted.
• Defrost cycle and reversing valve run manually, in any season.
• Auxiliary strips and sequencers tested, because a shorted strip is the most expensive winter problem to miss.
• Drain line flushed and treated for the iron, sulfur and hardness in well water across most of the county.
• Blower and indoor coil inspected and cleaned where accessible.
• Static pressure and duct read and inspected, including belly duct on manufactured homes in East Palatka and the rural ZIPs.
• Surge and flood check at the disconnect and board for houses on rural lines or near the St. Johns, Dunns Creek and Crescent Lake.
• Thermostat verified, and confirmed to be a heat pump thermostat at all.

Every reading goes on a sheet you keep. If a part tests weak, you get a price to replace it then rather than in the heat.

Call 866-266-5709

What changes the price of a tune-up

Cook’s does not publish maintenance prices here, because the visit is not the same at every house. What moves it:

What does not change the price: the day of the week or the hour. A Saturday tune-up is billed like a Wednesday one; the calendar does not change the rate.

Scheduling, and the around-the-clock part

The line is staffed every hour of every day. Tune-ups are usually booked during the day, because that is when homeowners want us there, but the same line that takes a 2 a.m. breakdown takes a maintenance booking. The truck leaves Palm Coast on SR 100 and reaches Palatka in about 51 minutes; river-town addresses in Welaka, Satsuma and Crescent City are planned into the route rather than tacked on.

The best windows for a heat pump in this county are March, as the pollen eases and before the heat arrives in mid-May, and October, after the cooling season and before the first freeze. A maintenance agreement puts both visits on our calendar automatically, and Lennox, Carrier, Bryant, Trane and every other brand get the same sheet.

If the bill has already jumped, do not wait for October. Call 866-266-5709, and we will start with the coil.