Heat Pump Repair in Calgary
A heat pump heats in winter, cools in summer, defrosts itself several times on a cold day and, in most Calgary homes, hands over to a gas furnace when the weather gets serious. That is a lot of moving parts and a lot of decisions made by a control board. When one of them goes wrong, the symptom is often confusing — a unit wrapped in ice, air that feels cool, or a furnace that never seems to get a rest.
We work out which part of that system has actually failed before anything is replaced. Sometimes it's the heat pump: a defrost sensor, a reversing valve, a capacitor, a fan motor, a leak. Sometimes it's the thermostat or the furnace it works with. And sometimes nothing is broken at all — a heat pump in a Calgary winter does a few things that look alarming and are completely normal, and we will tell you when that's the case.
Every major brand, ducted and ductless, including AirEase, which we install as an authorized AirEase dealer. If you're choosing a new system rather than fixing one, heat pumps in Calgary covers sizing, hybrid setups and installation. We dispatch from both Calgary and Airdrie. Call 587-834-3668 — a real person answers.
Heat pump iced over, blowing cool air, or leaving the furnace to do all the work? Call 587-834-3668.
Call 587-834-3668“Shaun serviced our AC and heat pump. On time, explained what he was doing, efficient, thorough. Good price for the quality of service. Highly recommend Shaun and FlameTech for HVAC.”
Michelle G
Calgary · 1 year ago
What's normal for a heat pump in a Calgary winter
A lot of heat pump calls in the first winter after an install turn out to be the system working as designed. These are the usual ones.
Clouds of steam from the outdoor unit
In heating mode the outdoor coil runs below freezing and collects frost. Every so often the heat pump reverses briefly to melt it off, and the meltwater comes off the warm coil as steam. It can look like smoke. It isn't.
A whoosh, a click and a pause
The start and end of a defrost cycle come with a rush of refrigerant and a clunk from the reversing valve, and the outdoor fan usually stops while it happens. Heard for the first time on a quiet night, it sounds like something breaking.
Air at the vents that feels cooler
A gas furnace delivers short blasts of very hot air. A heat pump delivers a longer, steady stream of warm air that feels cool against your hand even while the house holds its temperature. Our write-up on a heat pump that isn't warming the house explains how to tell the difference between that and a real fault.
Long run times
Heat pumps are designed to run for long stretches at lower output rather than cycling on and off. A heat pump that seems to run all day in cold weather is often doing exactly what it should.
The furnace taking over on cold days
On a hybrid system, the thermostat hands heating to the gas furnace below a set outdoor temperature. The heat pump going quiet while the furnace runs on a cold morning is the system working as intended.
The faults we repair most
When something is genuinely wrong, it's usually one of these.
Ice that doesn't clear
Some frost is normal. A coil encased in solid ice, or a unit that's growing an ice block underneath, is not. The cause is usually a failed defrost sensor or control board, a reversing valve that won't shift, low refrigerant, or meltwater that has nowhere to drain and freezes back onto the coil.
Cold air in heating mode
If the heat pump runs but blows genuinely cold air, it may be stuck in cooling mode. The reversing valve and the solenoid that operates it are the first suspects, followed by the thermostat wiring that tells the valve which way to sit.
Outdoor unit won't start
Indoor fan running, outdoor unit silent. On older single-speed units it's often a capacitor or a contactor. On inverter heat pumps it's more often a fault on the outdoor control board, which usually leaves an error code. A tripped breaker or a failed fan motor completes the usual list.
Refrigerant leaks
Signs include ice in odd places, weak heating and cooling, and pressure trips. We find the leak with electronic detection and pressure testing, repair it, evacuate the system and recharge it by weight. Refrigerant is recovered properly — it's never vented.
Tripping on pressure
A heat pump in heating mode relies on the indoor fan to carry heat away from the indoor coil. A clogged filter, a dirty coil or a weak furnace blower lets pressure climb until a safety switch trips. The fix is usually on the airflow side, not the heat pump.
Error codes on inverter and ductless units
Modern variable-speed heat pumps report faults as codes on the outdoor board, the thermostat or the indoor head. The code points at a sensor, a communication fault or a component, and we confirm it with measurements before a part is ordered. A ductless unit that won't heat is one of the most common versions.
When the problem is the hybrid setup
Most Calgary heat pumps share the job with a gas furnace. The two only work well together if they are set up to.
The furnace never gets a rest
If the gas bill didn't drop after a heat pump went in, the switchover temperature may be set too high, the thermostat may be treating the heat pump as a backup instead of the main source, or the heat pump may be locking itself out and quietly handing everything to the furnace.
Both running at once
A heat pump coil sits on top of the furnace. If the furnace fires while the heat pump is running, the heat pump sees hot air across its coil, pressures rise and it can trip or wear itself out. Correct thermostat configuration prevents it.
A new thermostat that isn't set up for it
Heat pumps need a thermostat that knows about the reversing valve and the dual-fuel handover. Smart thermostats installed without that setup are a regular cause of heating in cooling mode, or no heat pump operation at all.
After a furnace repair or replacement
A new control board or a new furnace can lose the settings the heat pump depended on — blower speeds and the handover signal among them. If the heat pump started misbehaving right after furnace work, tell us; it narrows things down quickly. The furnace half is on furnace repair.
Snow, ice and hail
Calgary's weather causes a fair share of outdoor unit damage, most of it avoidable.
Units that sit too low
An outdoor unit set straight onto a pad can be buried by drifting snow or frozen into its own meltwater. Raising it on a stand or wall bracket above the typical snow line solves both. It's often the first thing we suggest for a unit that ices up repeatedly.
Drips from above
A unit under a roof edge without a gutter, or below a leaking downspout, can take a constant drip that freezes into a sheet over the top and down the coil. Moving the water fixes it more reliably than moving the unit.
Don't chip the ice
It's tempting to knock ice off with a shovel or a screwdriver. The fins and tubing underneath are thin, and one slip turns an icing fault into a refrigerant leak. Switch the heat pump off at the thermostat, let the furnace carry the house while the ice thaws on its own, and call us — a unit that keeps icing needs a repair, not repeated de-icing.
Hail-flattened fins
Calgary hailstorms can flatten the fins on an outdoor coil and choke its airflow, which shows up as poor performance in both seasons. Minor damage can be combed straight. Severe damage is sometimes covered by home insurance, so photograph it before anything is repaired.
Repair or replace
Most heat pump faults are repairable. These are the ones that deserve a pause.
A failed compressor out of warranty
The compressor is the most expensive part of a heat pump. On a young unit still under warranty, replacing it is usually straightforward. On an older unit out of warranty, the cost often gets close enough to a new system that the comparison is worth making.
Older refrigerant
Canada is phasing down R-410A, the refrigerant in most heat pumps of the last two decades, and new systems are moving to lower-impact refrigerants. A major refrigerant repair on an older R-410A unit is still possible, but it's worth knowing where that system sits before you spend on it.
Repeated leaks
One repaired leak is normal. A system that keeps losing refrigerant from different places often has a coil that is failing along its length, and chasing leaks one at a time stops making sense.
What replacement costs
Heat pump installation runs $6,200 to $8,800 as of September 2026, depending on the system and what the electrical and ductwork need. When a repair is expensive, we put that figure next to the repair price so you can decide with both in front of you. Heat pumps in Calgary covers the options.
Calgary Heat Pump Repair FAQs
How much does heat pump repair cost in Calgary?
It depends on what failed, and we don't guess before we know. A sensor, a capacitor or a contactor is at the modest end. A fan motor or a control board costs more. A refrigerant leak depends on where the leak is and how much refrigerant the system needs afterwards. A compressor is the big one.
We find the fault first and give you the price of the repair before any work starts. Quotes are free.
My heat pump is covered in ice. Is it broken?
Not necessarily. A light, even frost that clears every so often during a defrost cycle is normal in cold weather.
A thick layer of ice that doesn't clear, ice building up from the base, or a unit that has frozen into a solid block is a fault — usually the defrost control, a sensor, the reversing valve, low refrigerant or drainage. Switch the heat pump off at the thermostat, let the furnace carry the house, and call us.
Is a broken heat pump an emergency?
On most Calgary hybrid systems, no. The gas furnace can heat the house on its own. Set the thermostat to emergency or auxiliary heat, or to furnace-only if it has that option, and the house stays warm while the heat pump waits for a repair.
It's a different story on an all-electric system with no furnace, or if the furnace isn't working either — tell us when you call.
Why is my heat pump blowing cold air?
First, check whether it's genuinely cold or just cooler than furnace air. Heat pump air feels cool to the hand even when it's heating the house properly.
If the air is actually cold and the house is losing temperature, the heat pump may be stuck in cooling mode — a reversing valve or thermostat wiring fault — or in the middle of a defrost cycle that isn't ending. Our article on a heat pump that isn't warming the house goes through the checks.
Do you repair ductless heat pumps?
Yes. Ductless and mini-split heat pumps are repaired on the same terms as ducted systems — error codes read and confirmed, sensors and boards tested, drain lines cleared, leaks found and repaired.
If you're thinking about adding ductless heating or cooling rather than fixing it, see mini split AC.
Can you repair a heat pump another company installed?
Yes. We repair every major brand regardless of who installed it, including Mitsubishi, Daikin, Carrier, Trane, Lennox and AirEase.
If the system is recent, check whether it's still under the installer's labour warranty before calling anyone else. We'd rather you use it than pay us for work that should be covered.
My gas bill went up after we got a heat pump. Why?
Usually the heat pump isn't doing as much of the heating as it should. The common causes are a switchover temperature set too high, a thermostat configured to treat the heat pump as backup heat, or a heat pump that locks out on a fault and silently leaves the furnace in charge.
We check the whole system — heat pump, thermostat and furnace — and set the handover where it makes sense for your house.
Should I get my heat pump serviced every year?
Yes. A heat pump works in both seasons, so it builds up twice the running hours of an air conditioner. An annual check of the refrigerant circuit, the electrical parts, the defrost operation and the outdoor coil catches most of the faults on this page before they happen.
It pairs well with a furnace tune-up on a hybrid system, since the two share the blower and the controls.
Do you do heat pump repair in Airdrie?
Yes — heat pump repair in Airdrie covers the Airdrie side. We dispatch from both Calgary and Airdrie.
More on heating and cooling.
If the repair turns into a bigger decision, or the problem turns out to live in the furnace.
Heat Pumps Calgary
Cold-climate, hybrid and ductless heat pump installation.
See serviceFurnace Repair
The other half of a hybrid system — igniters, sensors, blowers and boards.
See serviceAC Repair Calgary
Central air conditioning that won't cool, leaks or trips.
See serviceMini Split AC
Ductless heating and cooling for rooms the ductwork misses.
See serviceFurnace Tune-Ups
Annual maintenance with combustion and CO testing.
See serviceHeat Pump Repair Airdrie
The same repair work north of the city.
See serviceSimple, honest, on your schedule.
A heat pump can only be diagnosed properly while it's doing the thing it's getting wrong, so the order matters.
What it's doing, and when
Heating or cooling mode, the outdoor temperature when it happens, whether the furnace is involved, and what the thermostat or indoor head is showing. A fault that only appears at a certain temperature tells us a lot before we arrive.
Run it in the failing mode
We put the system into the mode it's struggling with and watch it: compressor and fan start-up, reversing valve position, line temperatures, and on a cold day, a defrost cycle from start to finish if we can force one.
Measure, then price
Refrigerant pressures and temperatures, electrical readings on the compressor and fan, sensor values against the manufacturer's tables. Once the failed part is identified, you get the price of the repair before anything is changed.
Repair and prove it
The repair is made, and the system runs through a full heating or cooling cycle — plus a defrost cycle in winter — before we sign off. On hybrid systems we confirm the handover to the furnace works in both directions.
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Where we cover Calgary.
Same-day dispatch across Calgary and Airdrie. Find your neighbourhood for area-specific notes on common builds, hard-water patterns, and the systems we see most.
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