Same-Day Heat Pump Repair in West Vancouver
A heat pump that keeps the house comfortable year-round is the one you never think about, and in West Vancouver most of them do exactly that. When one starts running without stopping, goes loud or goes silent outside, or leaves the house a few degrees short, it is usually one part, and it is the call we take most from Ambleside to the top of the British Properties. Our licensed technicians repair every residential brand, including Mitsubishi, Daikin, Fujitsu, Trane, Carrier, Lennox, Bosch, Rheem, and more, with same-day service available. The $189 diagnostic covers the outdoor unit, the indoor coil or air handler, the refrigerant charge, the defrost control, and the thermostat and backup heat settings, and the repair is quoted before any work starts with OEM and CSA certified parts and six months warranty on parts and labour. Higher up, where rain at the waterfront comes down as snow, we also check the outdoor unit for snow and ice buildup.
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West Vancouver runs from sea level at Ambleside to more than 1,100 feet at the top of the British Properties, and in winter that is the difference between rain and snow. A storm that leaves Dundarave wet leaves Chartwell, Whitby Estates, and Cypress Park under heavy coastal snow that melts, refreezes, and melts again. A heat pump's outdoor unit pulls heat out of that air, and below about five degrees the coil frosts over and the unit stops heating for a few minutes while the coil defrosts. Higher up, with colder air and more moisture, that happens more often. When snow drifts against the coil or ice builds up under the fan, the defrost cycle is not enough. The unit runs constantly, delivers less heat, and the system switches over to backup heat.
Down at sea level the picture is different. The heat pumps in Ambleside, Dundarave, and Cedardale are mostly newer, installed in the last ten years under the CleanBC and FortisBC rebate programs, often on homes that had a furnace before. The common faults there are the ones every brand shares: a refrigerant leak at a fitting on the line set, a failed outdoor fan motor, a start capacitor that has failed so the compressor will not run, a reversing valve that sticks between heating and cooling, or a thermostat set up wrong so the electric backup runs when the heat pump should. Most of it is standard heat pump repair work, done in one visit or quoted and booked for a return visit within a day or two.
Repairs are quoted before the work starts, with OEM and CSA certified parts and six months warranty on parts and labour. Eaton's Heating is TSBC licensed (LGA0200006), a Home Performance Contractor Network member, and holds a 4.9 rating across 400-plus Google reviews. Same-day service is available across West Vancouver, and most heat pump repairs finish in one visit.
Some of the heat pumps higher up the slope are older ducted units from the 2000s, installed when the house was renovated and the furnace came out, and on those a repair is worth doing as long as the compressor is sound. When the compressor is gone on a fifteen-year-old unit, we say so and point you to heat pump installation in West Vancouver rather than quoting a repair that costs half of a new system. If the heat pump turns out to be fine and the furnace it is paired with is the problem, that gets looked at on the same visit.
Every heat pump has backup heat. On most West Vancouver systems it is a set of electric heating elements inside the air handler, and on dual-fuel systems it is the gas furnace the heat pump was paired with. The backup is meant to run only on the coldest days or for a few minutes during a defrost cycle, and part of the diagnostic is confirming that is all it is doing. We check the balance point, the outdoor temperature at which the thermostat brings the backup in, and confirm the outdoor unit is running and contributing rather than sitting idle while the backup does the work.
The rest of the visit runs outside to in. Outside: the coil for frost, debris, and damage, the refrigerant charge, the fan motor, the start capacitor, the switch that starts the compressor, and the defrost control, with a full defrost cycle watched if the weather allows. Inside: the coil, the air handler or furnace blower, the filter, the condensate drain, and the thermostat settings. On the higher streets in the British Properties we also check how the outdoor unit is sitting relative to the snow, since a unit on a ground-level pad that is fine in Ambleside spends January half buried up there. Everything found is quoted before any work starts.
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The diagnostic is $189 and covers the full outdoor and indoor check described above. The repair is quoted before any work starts. The least expensive repairs are a start capacitor, a contactor, a defrost control, or a thermostat correction. A fan motor, a reversing valve, or a refrigerant leak repair and recharge cost more, and a compressor is the one repair where we will tell you honestly whether the unit is worth it. Every part is OEM and CSA certified with six months warranty on parts and labour.
Usually not. That is the defrost cycle. The coil frosts over in cold, damp air, the unit reverses for a few minutes to melt the frost, and the steam and water you see are the frost coming off. Indoors the air from the vents goes cool for the same few minutes. What is not normal is a coil that stays white all day, a solid sheet of ice on the bottom of the unit, or a fan that is hitting ice. Those mean the defrost control, the outdoor temperature sensor, or the refrigerant charge needs looking at, and they show up far more often in Chartwell and Cypress Park than in Ambleside because the air up there is colder and the snow sits longer.
Yes. Wall-mounted or ducted, every residential brand. The Japanese brands are the most common heat pumps in the newer Ambleside and Dundarave installs and in the renovated houses in Cedardale and Caulfeild, and their faults are the same ones every heat pump has: fan motors, boards, sensors, refrigerant leaks, and the occasional compressor. We also repair Trane, Carrier, Lennox, Bosch, Rheem, Goodman, Bryant, KeepRite, Amana, and every other residential brand, and the $189 diagnostic is the same for all of them.
Yes, and carefully. Keep snow from piling against the sides and top of the outdoor unit, and clear it after a storm so the coil can draw air. Never chip ice off the coil or the fan with a shovel or a tool, since the coil fins bend and the fan blade cracks. If ice keeps forming under the unit or the fan is hitting it, call us rather than clearing it again. In the British Properties, Whitby Estates, and Cypress Park, many heat pumps were installed on ground-level pads that are fine at sea level and sit in the snow every January. Those neighbourhoods are the upper end of the area our West Vancouver HVAC services page covers, and the snow line is why we treat them differently. Raising the unit on a stand is a small job and it ends the problem.
No. The CleanBC and FortisBC rebate programs apply to new heat pump installations, not repairs. If your unit is at the point where a repair does not make sense, we cover the options on our heat pump installation page, and as a FortisBC Trade Ally we confirm what your home qualifies for during the assessment rather than promising an amount. Current programs are listed on our BC rebates page.
In cold weather, yes. Heat pumps deliver heat at a lower temperature than a furnace and are designed to run long and steady rather than in short bursts, so a unit running most of the evening in January in a Chartwell home is doing what it should. What to watch for is the combination: long run times and a house that is still short of the thermostat setting, or long run times and a BC Hydro bill that jumped. That points to low refrigerant, a defrost problem, or the backup heat carrying the load. Short cycling, where the unit starts and stops every few minutes, is the other warning sign and usually means a control or sensor fault.
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