Same-Day Heat Pump Repair Based in Coquitlam
A heat pump handles heating and cooling from one outdoor unit, and in a dual-fuel home it does both alongside a gas furnace that picks up the coldest stretches. That partnership is efficient right up until it hides a problem. A heat pump that is slowly losing capacity through the winter does not leave the house cold, because the furnace quietly takes over and runs more. The only evidence is a gas bill that climbs and a cooling system that shows up broken in June. Eaton's Heating is based in Coquitlam and repairs heat pumps across every neighbourhood in the city. The diagnostic is $189, it covers the full refrigerant and electrical system, and every repair is quoted before work starts.
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Most heat pumps in Coquitlam were added to homes that already had a gas furnace and ductwork, installed during the CleanBC and FortisBC rebate years when the incentives made the addition straightforward. The result is a dual-fuel system where the heat pump carries the house through mild and moderate weather and the furnace takes over when the temperature drops past the changeover point. That setup works well, but it also means a heat pump that is slowly failing does not announce itself the way a furnace does. The furnace runs more, the gas bill drifts upward, and nobody connects the two until the first hot week in June reveals that the cooling side is broken. The $189 diagnostic covers both halves: where the changeover is set, whether the heat pump is actually doing its share of the heating, and whether the furnace has been quietly compensating all winter.
Coquitlam's installed base is concentrated in the rebate-era window, roughly 2015 through 2022, which means most systems are five to ten years old and entering the phase where the first significant component failures show up. Capacitors lose charge and can no longer deliver a reliable startup. Contactor surfaces pit from years of arcing. Refrigerant develops slow leaks at brazed joints that have expanded and contracted through thousands of heating-to-cooling transitions. Defrost sensors wear from the steady cycling that Coquitlam's wetter, colder upper-elevation neighbourhoods demand, and on Westwood Plateau and Burke Mountain the outdoor unit runs closer to its capacity limits through winter than equipment sitting near the river in Maillardville or Austin Heights. The symptom that brings homeowners to call varies, icing, lukewarm air, short cycling, a spike in the gas bill, but the diagnostic approach is the same: measure the refrigerant system, test the electrical components, and verify the defrost and reversing valve behaviour before replacing anything.
Getting the diagnosis right on the first visit is the whole point. A heat pump that blows lukewarm air could be low on refrigerant, stuck on a partially failed reversing valve, running with a dirty outdoor coil that cannot exchange heat properly, or simply undersized for the house. Replacing the wrong part wastes money and leaves the real problem in place. Our technicians measure before they replace, working through the refrigerant charge, the defrost cycle, the electrical chain, and the changeover logic with the furnace before anything gets ordered. Technical Safety BC licence LGA0200006, FortisBC Trade Ally, BBB A+, HPCN registered, WorkSafeBC covered, and a 4.9 average across 400-plus Google reviews. We install Trane as an authorized dealer and repair every residential brand that shows up in Coquitlam: Lennox, Carrier, Goodman, Bryant, Bosch, Mitsubishi, Daikin, Fujitsu, and the rest. Parts are OEM and CSA certified, warranted six months on parts and labour.
The environment around the outdoor unit matters as much as what is inside it. Across Coquitlam, conditions vary: a unit tucked against a fence in a Burke Mountain townhome yard lives differently than one sitting on a Westwood Plateau hillside exposed to wind and weather. Vegetation, debris, and restricted airflow around the condenser coil are the invisible killers of heat pump performance, and checking the site is part of every diagnostic, because no replacement part fixes a system that cannot breathe.
Heat pumps age out earlier than furnaces, usually somewhere in the early to mid teens, and the oldest units in Coquitlam may still run refrigerant that has been phased out of production. When the diagnostic lands on a compressor failure, a chronic leak on an older refrigerant, or repair costs that approach what a modern system would cost to finance, we put heat pump installation in Coquitlam pricing beside the repair, current rebates included, so the decision is made on real numbers. Until then, every repair is quoted exactly and approved before work starts.
A furnace failure has one bad season. A heat pump failure has two. The January version is obvious: the outdoor unit ices over during a cold stretch and the house goes cold, or would if the furnace were not picking up the slack. The July version catches people off guard: systems that spent all winter quietly underperforming behind the furnace get discovered during the first real heat wave, all at once, by everyone. Being based in Coquitlam means our home-city calls move to the front of the schedule during both rushes, and most repairs finish in one visit because our trucks carry the parts that cover the most common heat pump failures.
The homeowners who skip both emergencies book a check in the shoulder seasons, spring before cooling and fall before heating, when the schedule is open and a problem caught early is a part, not a crisis. When repair costs on an aging system start approaching replacement territory, CleanBC and FortisBC rebate programs on qualifying heat pump installations can take a serious bite out of the cost. We confirm what currently applies and file the Trade Ally paperwork after installation. Financeit at zero percent over 12 months bridges the timing.
Licensed Gas Contractor (LGA0200006)
Authorized Dealer and Installer
Certified Fireplace Dealer
Have a question about your HVAC system? Book an appointment using the form below, or call (604) 535-8434 for immediate help.
Faster here than anywhere else, and heat pump emergencies are the only ones we plan for in two seasons. Winter no-heat calls during cold snaps and summer no-cooling calls during the first real heat wave both move to the front of the schedule. Between peaks, most repairs book within a day or two. If the system is acting up in the shoulder season, that is the cheap time to look at it, before either rush arrives. Call (604) 535-8434.
Walk outside and listen. When the heat pump is carrying the house, the outdoor fan spins and the unit hums. When the furnace has taken over, the outdoor unit sits silent and the warmer air comes from the mechanical room instead. Many thermostats also display an auxiliary or backup heat indicator when the changeover happens. Why it matters: heat pump heat is the cheaper heat, so a system where the furnace quietly does most of the winter work means you are paying gas prices for heating the heat pump was installed to handle. If the outdoor unit seems idle through weather it used to handle, that is exactly the symptom worth a diagnostic.
That is normal, and it means the system is taking care of itself. On freezing mornings the outdoor coil collects frost, and the unit periodically reverses to melt it off: the fan pauses, a whoosh follows as refrigerant changes direction, and the melting frost rises as a cloud of steam that looks alarming and is not. A puddle under the unit afterward is the same story. The line between normal and a problem is what happens next: a defrost cycle that ends with a clear coil is healthy. A cycle that repeats endlessly or leaves ice behind needs a service call.
There are really two kinds of heat pump repair, and they price differently. The electrical side is the more affordable one: capacitors, contactors, defrost sensors, and fan motors mostly land between $200 and $600 in parts and labour on top of the $189 diagnostic. The refrigerant side is where costs climb: leak detection and repair, recharging, reversing valve work, and anything touching the compressor vary with the system and the refrigerant it uses. Every repair is quoted exactly and approved before work starts, parts are OEM and CSA certified, and the warranty covers six months on parts and labour. The diagnostic tells you which side of that range you are on before you spend another dollar.
Judge ice by whether it leaves, not whether it shows up. Frost after a freezing night is routine, and a healthy defrost system clears it within the morning. The problem signs are ice that survives into the afternoon, climbs the coil day over day, or reaches the fan blades. That means the defrost system, the refrigerant charge, or the airflow has failed, and running the unit in that condition risks the compressor, which is the one component nobody wants to price. Switch the system to furnace-only at the thermostat and book the visit. The furnace will carry the house while we sort out the heat pump.
Probably not. Variable-speed and inverter-driven heat pumps are designed to run at lower output for long stretches rather than cycling on and off like older single-stage equipment. Extended low-speed operation is actually how these systems achieve their efficiency ratings, and it produces more even temperatures than short cycling does. If your system is variable-speed and the house reaches the setpoint, long run times are expected behaviour. If it is a single-stage unit that used to cycle normally and now runs without stopping, or if it runs constantly without reaching temperature, that points to a refrigerant issue, a dirty coil, or a system that was undersized from the start. The $189 diagnostic sorts it out.
Simply complete our form to make an appointment. A member of our team will be in touch to confirm your appointment.
