The following remarks were made regarding the article “Is Raising Heat Pumps Really Necessary?” written by Robin Boyd, HVAC consultant, published May 23, 2011.

In this troubleshooting situation, the equipment is an air source heat pump and the customer’s complaint is that even though the thermostat is set at 70° F, the temperature in the conditioned space remains near 65°.

The equipment in this troubleshooting situation is a package unit heat pump and the customer’s complaint is that the unit is “blowing warm air.” When you respond to this service call, you confirm that the indoor temperature is near 90°F, and you also find that the customer has turned the equipment off while awaiting your arrival.

Bob and Tim were on their last service call for the day. It was an apartment house with a heat pump and the weather was warm during the day and cool at night. The tenant had just moved into this apartment and was trying to get the air conditioning to operate to her satisfaction and she said it was too breezy.

Just about every manufacturer recommends homeowners have their air-source heat pumps serviced twice a year — once in the spring and once in the fall. Most believe that semi-annual maintenance helps keep equipment operating at peak performance and ensures the unit is ready for the heat of summer or cold of winter.

In this troubleshooting situation, you are responding to a customer’s complaint about their heat pump, and you’re not the first technician called in to solve this problem of “not keeping the home comfortable and running a lot.”

Bob and Tim were at a retail store and were preparing to do a routine service call on a 5-ton heat pump. It was a fall day with a temperature of about 50°F when they turned the heat pump on. After doing a visual inspection at the air handler, they moved to the roof to give the outdoor unit a visual inspection.

Bob and Tim were called to a heat pump problem where the homeowner said the unit was icing up in her basement. When they arrived, the housewife met them at the door and took them down to the basement and said, “This is not normal. I have never seen ice down here on these lines before.”