Heating Repair in Palm Harbor, FL

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimates what fuel heats each occupied home. For Palm Harbor, the 2019 to 2023 estimates count about 25,800 homes heating with electricity. About 590 use utility gas, and a few dozen use bottled, tank or LP gas.

Two electric heating setups are covered here.

A heat pump with backup heat. The Department of Energy's Building America Solution Center notes that heat pumps, even in warm climates, have traditionally been installed with a backup heat source. That backup is usually an electric resistance element, such as one built into the indoor air handler. The heat pump and the backup can run at the same time.

Electric resistance heat alone. If there is no heat pump, the electric elements in the indoor unit do all the heating.

If you are not sure which you have, our guide on how to tell if you have a heat pump walks through it. If your home is one of the few with gas heat, say so when you call. Gas connections, burners and venting are work for a licensed contractor only.

NOAA's 1991 to 2020 climate normals for its Tarpon Springs station, which sits north of Palm Harbor, describe a short heating season.

• January has the lowest normal low, about 51 degrees.
• Cold nights are few. On average the low reaches 40 degrees or colder on about 11 nights a year, and freezing on fewer than two.
• The cool nights cluster in winter. Most of the 40-degree nights fall in December, January and February.
• May through October have normal lows above 67 degrees.

NOAA also counts heating and cooling degree days, a running measure of how far daily temperatures sit from 65 degrees. Tarpon Springs averages about 590 heating degree days a year and nearly six times as many cooling degree days. Most of the heating degree days fall in December, January and February.

For a homeowner, that means the heating side of the system can go unused for months. A problem with the heat may not show itself until a front comes through and the thermostat calls for heat. ENERGY STAR suggests checking the heating system in the fall, before contractors get busy.

These are the only checks a homeowner should make. No tools, no covers off.

1. Thermostat settings. Make sure it is set to Heat and that the set temperature is above the room temperature. ENERGY STAR lists checking thermostat settings as part of routine care.
2. The air filter. ENERGY STAR advises inspecting, cleaning or changing filters once a month, and warns that a dirty filter can damage equipment. If yours is clogged, replace it.
3. Vents, returns and the outdoor unit. Open the supply vents and clear furniture, rugs or storage away from the return grilles. If you have a heat pump, clear leaves and debris from around the outdoor unit.

Then give the system a few minutes to respond.

If a breaker for the heat has tripped, leave it off and call a licensed contractor. Do not switch it back on yourself. ENERGY STAR notes that faulty electrical connections can cause unsafe operation of your system. Finding why a breaker tripped is work for a licensed contractor. The same goes for any smell of burning plastic or smoke: turn the system off at the thermostat and call.

The Building America Solution Center calls electric resistance backup an inefficient and typically expensive form of heat. When a heat pump cannot keep up, the backup makes up the difference at a much lower efficiency.

The Florida Solar Energy Center, at the University of Central Florida, studied metered heat pumps in Florida homes. Homes that set the thermostat back overnight and turned it up in the morning showed large amounts of strip heat during morning operation. The researchers also found that strip heat had a large impact on the efficiency the heat pumps actually achieved.

Two practical points follow for a Palm Harbor homeowner.

• A big jump on the thermostat on a cold morning can bring on large amounts of backup heat, as the Florida Solar Energy Center data showed.
• A house that only warms up on backup heat points to a heat pump that is not doing its share. That needs a diagnosis, not a winter on the backup. Our pages on auxiliary heat and emergency heat explain the thermostat settings in more detail.

ENERGY STAR's maintenance checklist describes work that belongs to a contractor, not a homeowner. It includes tightening electrical connections and measuring voltage and current on motors, and checking the system's controls for proper and safe operation. On gas equipment, it includes checking gas connections, gas pressure, burner combustion and the heat exchanger.

Blume's refrigerant work is done by EPA Section 608 certified technicians, the federal refrigerant-handling credential.

Blume gives you a written, upfront price before any work starts. If the fault is one part, that is the repair. If older equipment has a larger failure, you see the repair and replacement numbers side by side, and Blume does not sell equipment a building does not need. The heat pump repair page for Palm Harbor covers heat pump faults in more depth.

Because Palm Harbor has no city government, building permits come from Pinellas County. The county's Building and Development Review Services department serves unincorporated areas, and its residential permits cover trade work, including mechanical. The county says most jobs that change a home's mechanical systems require a permit.

If a repair turns into a replacement, the permit runs through the county, and the county's Address Lookup Tool confirms whether your address is unincorporated.

Replacement equipment from Blume is sized with an ACCA Manual J load calculation and Manual S selection, and financing is available through Synchrony Bank. See AC replacement in Palm Harbor for how a replacement goes.

Blume Mechanical Service, LLC is a Class A licensed Florida air conditioning contractor (license CAC-1822618) and is fully insured. We are brand-agnostic. Our office is at 2840 West Bay Drive #114, Belleair Bluffs, FL 33770, and our core service area is Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties.

What to have ready when you call

• Whether your home has a heat pump, electric heat only, or gas heat.
• What the thermostat is set to and what it reads.
• Whether a breaker for the heat has tripped. Leave it off.
• Whether the house warms up at all, and when the heat last worked.
• Whether the home is a house, a condo or apartment, or a mobile home.

For other problems, see AC repair in Palm Harbor or all Palm Harbor services.