Why Is My Heat Not Working in My House in Spring Hill Florida?

You turned the heat on and nothing happened. The thermostat is set, the system should be running, but the house is not warming up. In Spring Hill the temperature does not drop dramatically very often but when it does and the heat does not work it gets uncomfortable fast, especially at night when it drops into the 40s and the house that was fine at 7pm is noticeably cold by midnight. Before you assume the worst there are a few things worth checking yourself and a clear point where you need to stop guessing and call someone.

Start With the Thermostat

The most common reason heat does not come on in a Florida home is a thermostat that is set incorrectly. Your system spends most of the year in cooling mode and it is easy to forget to switch it to heat when a cold front rolls through. Check that the thermostat is set to heat not cool and not fan only. Make sure the temperature is set above the current room temperature. Check the batteries if it is battery powered. A thermostat with dead batteries will not send any signal to the system at all and the whole thing will look completely dead even when nothing mechanical is wrong.

Check the Breaker

Your heating system runs on a dedicated circuit. If that breaker tripped the system will not run. Go check the panel and look for a tripped breaker. Reset it once. If it comes back on and stays on you may be fine. If it trips again immediately leave it and call someone because something in the system is drawing more power than the circuit is rated for.

Heat Pumps and How They Fail in Florida

Most homes in Spring Hill use heat pumps rather than gas furnaces. A heat pump runs the refrigeration cycle in reverse to pull heat from the outside air and move it inside. This works fine down to a certain outdoor temperature and in Spring Hill that is almost never a problem. But heat pumps have components that fail just like AC systems do. A reversing valve that is stuck in cooling mode will cause the system to blow cold air instead of warm. A failed capacitor will prevent the system from starting at all. A refrigerant leak affects heating performance the same way it affects cooling. If your heat is blowing cold air instead of warm a stuck reversing valve is one of the first things to check.

Systems That Sat All Summer

In Spring Hill heating systems often go months without being used. A system that ran fine in February may have developed a problem over the summer that you had no way of knowing about until you needed it in December. Capacitors can fail while sitting. Contacts can corrode. Wiring connections can loosen. The first cold front of the year is when you find out the system has a problem that developed while it was sitting idle. This is why turning the heat on before you actually need it is a good habit. Finding out the heat does not work on a mild October day is a lot easier to deal with than finding out on a cold January night.

When Nothing Works and You Cannot Figure Out Why

If you have checked the thermostat, checked the breaker and the system still will not run there is something wrong inside that needs a technician to diagnose. Heating system problems that are not solved by the simple checks above are almost always a failed component, an electrical issue or a refrigerant problem on a heat pump. None of these are things you can fix yourself without the right tools and training and trying to can make the problem worse.

If your heat is not working in Spring Hill get it looked at before the next cold front hits. A proper heating repair in Spring Hill starts with finding the actual cause so you know what failed and what it will take to fix it.