Heat Pump Maintenance

A full visit, not a filter rinse. We deep-clean the indoor head’s filters, blower wheel, and coil (where the mold and dust that cause the classic "dirty sock" smell actually live), wash the outdoor coil, verify refrigerant charge and temperature split with instruments, test the defrost cycle, inspect and tighten electrical connections, clear the condensate drain, check mounting hardware and line-set insulation, and confirm the base pan drains so winter defrost water is not refreezing into an ice block under the unit.

You get a straight report at the end: what we measured, what we cleaned, and whether anything is trending toward a future repair. If nothing is wrong, the report says nothing is wrong — we are a local shop with no upsell quotas, so a healthy system gets a clean bill, not a sales pitch.

Heat pumps in Maine work nearly year-round — heating through long winters and cooling in summer — so they accumulate runtime faster than systems in milder states. Dirty coils force the compressor to work harder, which is the single biggest driver of premature failure and quietly inflates your electric bill month after month. Coastal salt air corrodes outdoor coils, pollen and pet hair mat indoor filters, and snow-season defrost cycles put extra stress on sensors and boards.

An annual cleaning restores lost efficiency immediately (a matted filter alone can cut output noticeably), keeps manufacturer warranty requirements satisfied, and catches small issues — a weakening capacitor, a slow refrigerant leak — while they are cheap. The best schedule for most homes is spring or fall, between the heavy heating and cooling seasons.