A Timely Heat Pump Repair in Jonesborough, TN Saved this Customer From Taking Out Their Compressor

Received a call from a new customer in Jonesborough, TN in need of a heat pump repair. The customer stated that their heat pump on the first floor of the home wasn’t keeping up with their set temperature on their thermostat. They stated that they had never had any major issues with this heat pump since they had built the home almost 20 years ago. We advised them to shut the system down since it wasn’t operating properly.

When we arrived, we took a look at the thermostat inside and the customer stated that they had just replaced the 2 filters on their return grilles that service the first-floor unit. We placed Bluetooth probes on one of the return grilles and on a supply register. We looked at the indoor unit in the garage below and confirmed what type of metering device we were dealing with on the indoor coil. We went to the outdoor unit and hooked up probes to the system. We had the customer who was standing there with us turn the system back into cooling.

We noticed an issue with airflow almost immediately based on what we were seeing on the suction side of the system. We had extremely low pressure and no superheat at all. We pulled the outdoor disconnect to prevent damage to the system since the low side of the system was operating below freezing temperatures and we were flooding back liquid due to not having any superheat. We went to the indoor unit in the garage and verified that the indoor blower motor was running at full speed and the amp draw was in range. We killed power to the indoor unit so that the blower motor would no longer run. We carefully pulled the access panel to the coil in order to inspect the underside of the coil. The coil did not appear to be restricted with debris so it was not causing an airflow restriction. We looked down into the return plenum and it was not blocked and the duct leading into it was not restricted either. We went back into the home and pulled the 2 air filters from the return grilles to look inside the wall cavity where the return air dropped down through the floor into the return duct. We noticed an old piece of cardboard blocking almost all of the airflow on the return duct opening.

We pulled the cardboard out of the return wall cavity so that air could pass into the return duct leading to the indoor unit in the garage below. We put a light into the wall cavity to see if there was anymore debris inside the wall that could fall down into the return duct again and did not find anything else. The cardboard looked like it had been inside the wall cavity for years and just recently had fallen down and blocked the return air from getting to the indoor unit. We restored high voltage power to the indoor and outdoor units and had the customer turn the system back into cooling mode. Pressures on the high & low side, coil & line temperatures, superheat, sub-cooling, amp draws, and the temperature split were all in range. The system was fully operational again and was running within its design parameters.

We offered to check the capacitors on the system and to clean the outdoor coil as well since we were already there, but the customer declined any further service since the unit was cooling again. If you reside within our service area of Northeast Tennessee and are in need of a heat pump repair, please feel free to reach out to us. We would be happy to help you get your system operational again and are not the pushy salesmen type. We provide the facts and you decide what you want done on your system. Just because your system is old and not working doesn’t mean you need a new system. Stay safe and best wishes.

Location: Jonesborough, TN