Steam rising off the outdoor unit in Fullerwood Park: a heat pump doing its job

What the homeowner on the porch is seeing

It’s 42 degrees at 7 a.m. in Fullerwood Park. The outdoor unit beside the house has gone quiet, then a loud whoosh, then a cloud of steam pours off the top and the fan starts again. The homeowner, coffee in hand, is wondering whether to call someone.

What she’s watching is a defrost cycle. In heating mode the outdoor coil gets cold enough to frost over on a humid St. Augustine morning, and every so often the system reverses itself briefly to melt the frost, sending steam off the coil. It takes a few minutes and ends on its own.

What she should call about: ice that never melts and builds into a solid block, steam every ten minutes all morning, or a house that’s still 62 degrees at 9 a.m. with the unit running the whole time. Those are a failing defrost control, a sensor fault or a system that lost refrigerant over the summer, and all three are routine repairs when caught early.

A house in Fullerwood and a shop on San Marco

The same equipment serves both, and the work is different in ways that matter.

The bungalow runs its heat pump perhaps eight hours a day in summer and a few hours on winter mornings. The ductwork was retrofitted into a 1930s house and leaks more than it should. The homeowner notices comfort first and the bill second. Service is scheduled around her calendar, and the outdoor unit’s placement has to pass the Historic Architectural Review Board if it moves.

The antique shop a few blocks away on San Marco Avenue runs its two heat pumps twelve hours a day, every day, with the front door opening every time a customer walks in. The load is dominated by people and the door, not the weather. Filters load up in weeks. Downtime costs sales, so repairs happen before opening or after closing, and the units sit on a roof stand where salt and heat work on them faster. The invoice goes to a business and needs to be itemized for the accountant.

Cook’s handles both from the same dispatch. The tools are the same; the pace and the paperwork aren’t.

How a heat pump project moves

Whether it’s a repair, a tune-up or a replacement, the sequence is consistent:

1. The call and the questions. Symptom, age, brand if known, residential or commercial, and whether the building is in a historic district or a flood street.
2. The site visit. Measurements, not opinions: refrigerant pressures, temperature rise or split, amp draws, static pressure, defrost operation. For a replacement, a load calculation plus an inspection of the ductwork and electrical.
3. The written options. Repair with a price, or replacement with two or three equipment tiers, or both side by side when the system is at the age where either is defensible.
4. The work. Repairs usually finish the same visit. Installations are scheduled for a day that suits you, including weekends, with no after-hours charge.
5. Startup and verification. Full heating and cooling cycles run and measured. Thermostat configured for heat pump operation, including the auxiliary heat lockout that keeps the strips off when they aren’t needed.
6. Registration and handoff. Warranty registered, maintenance schedule set, paperwork in your hand.

Start with a phone call

How long each stage takes

Reading the invoice line by line

A Cook’s heat pump invoice is written so a homeowner or a bookkeeper can see what the money bought:

• Diagnostic. The visit and the measurements, listed once.
• Parts. Each part named, with the quantity. A capacitor is a capacitor, not “electrical components.”
• Labor. The work, described. “Replaced defrost control board, verified defrost cycle” rather than “repair.”
• Refrigerant. Type and amount, if any was added, and the leak repair it followed. We don’t add refrigerant without finding the leak, so you won’t see a top-off as a line by itself.
• Equipment on an installation: model numbers for the outdoor unit, air handler or coil, thermostat and any accessories, so the warranty registration matches.
• Rebates and credits. FPL’s instant rebate, where the unit qualifies and the contractor participates, appears as a reduction.
• Financing, if used, shows the amount financed; the terms are in your separate agreement, never on the invoice.

No after-hours line item exists, because there’s no after-hours charge.

Lennox installed, every brand serviced

We install Lennox heat pumps, including ENERGY STAR and solar-compatible systems, and we repair whatever is already in the building. Tell us which kind of building you have; we’ll tell you which kind of heat pump it needs.