Heat Pump Repair in Mobile, AL
Homes here need heat from November through March and cooling from April through October. If your system quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Mobile County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Your heat pump works every month of the year here
In Mobile, the heat pump does not get a season off. It runs from November through March to keep the house warm, then switches over and runs April through October to cool it. That is twelve months of the compressor cycling on and off, with almost no break to rest.
Summer afternoons averaging 91°F push the outdoor unit hard for seven straight months. Winter nights averaging 42°F call for defrost cycles and, on the colder ones, backup heat. With 63.4% of homes here heating with electricity, a lot of that backup load falls on the heat pump itself. Add in the wind, with 155 damaging wind events recorded over the past ten years, and the outdoor unit takes a beating from more than just the weight of the work. When the power drops, most heat pumps come back on by themselves, but 18% of Alabama households lost power for a full day or more in 2024, and a storm can trip a breaker that does not reset on its own.
- 5 months
- November through March, your system heats
- 7 months
- April through October, it cools
- 42°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Alabama requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Alabama Board of Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Contractors tests and licenses the contractor, not the job. That license sits with the business itself, so it carries over from one repair to the next rather than being issued fresh for your heat pump.
A heat pump repair usually means opening the refrigerant side of the system, and that work falls under a separate federal rule that applies no matter what state you live in. Any technician handling refrigerant has to hold EPA Section 608 certification. In Alabama, the contractor's state license and the technician's federal certification cover this job together, one for the business, one for the person doing the work.
Source: Alabama Board of Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractors
- Why is my heat pump blowing cold air?
- In heating mode, air from the vents is naturally cooler than your skin, so it can feel cold even when the system is working right. If the air is actually cold and the house isn't warming up, the problem is often the reversing valve stuck in the wrong position, or the unit has iced over outside and can't pull in heat. It could also be low refrigerant, which keeps the system from moving heat into the house at all. A contractor can check the reversing valve and refrigerant charge to find out which one it is.
- Why is there ice on my heat pump?
- Some frost during a defrost cycle is normal, especially on cold winter nights here. The unit is built to melt that off on its own every so often. Ice that stays or keeps building means something is stopping the defrost cycle from running, often a failed defrost control board, a stuck reversing valve, or a fan motor that isn't clearing frost off the coil. If the coil stays covered, the system can't pull heat from the outside air, and it will keep struggling until the ice is dealt with.
- Why is my heat pump running but not cooling?
- If the outdoor unit is running but the house isn't cooling down, the most common cause is low refrigerant from a leak somewhere in the line. It can also mean the outdoor coil is dirty or blocked, which stops the unit from releasing heat outside, or the compressor itself is failing. Summer afternoons here get hot enough that a system losing refrigerant will fall further behind as the day goes on. A contractor can check refrigerant levels and inspect the coil to find the cause.